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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 

S T3 


CHAUCER 

AND THE 

ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


COLUMBIA UNIVEESITY PRESS 
SALES AGENTS 

NEW YORK: 

LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
30-32 West 27th Street 

LONDON : 

HUMPHREY MILFORD 
Amen Corner, E.C. 

TORONTO : 

HUMPHREY MILFORD 
25 Richmond Street, W. 


CHAUCEE 

AND THE 

ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


BY 

DEAN SPRUILL FANSLER 


Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements 
FOR THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy^ in the 
Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University 


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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1914 


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Copyriglit, 1914 

By Columbia University Press 
Printed from type, January, 1914 


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This Monograph has been approved by the Department 
of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia Uni- 
versity as a contribution to knowledge ivorthy of publi- 
cation. 


A. II. THORNDIKE, 
Executive Officer. 






■ r ;. . A. 




To 

My Father and Mother 
This hook is affectionately dedicated 



PREFATORY NOTE 


I take pleasure in acknowledging in print my indebted- 
ness to Professor Harry M. Ayres, Professor George P. 
Krapp, and Professor William W. Lawrence, of Columbia 
University, who have generously read both the manuscript 
and the proof-sheets of this book and have made many 
suggestions of value. My greatest obligation is to Professor 
Lawrence, under whose immediate direction this disserta- 
tion has been prepared. He has unselfishly at all times 
given me the benefit of his wide acquaintance with medieval 
literature, and has been most courteous and helpful. I am 
also grateful to Professor William E. Mead, of AVesleyan 
University, for a number of useful bibliographical refer- 
ences. D. S. F. 

Manila, 1913. 










TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction 1 

Chapter I. The Influence of the Boman de la Bose on Chaucer 

Eeading 11 

Chapter II. Allusions to Historical and Legendary Persons and 

Places 24 

Chapter III. Mythological Allusions 48 

Chapter IV. Chaucer ^s Style as Affected by the Boman 73 

Chapter V. Situations and Descriptions 123 

Chapter VI. Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions 175 

Chapter VII. Influence of the Boman de la Bose on Chaucer 

Philosophical Discussions 203 

Conclusion 229 

Bibliography 235 

xVppendices for Keference: 

A. Comparative Table of Meon^s, MichePs, and Marteau's 

Numbering of the Lines of the Boman de la Bose 240 

B. Table showing corresponding lines in Ellises translation 

of the Boman de la Bose, the Middle English Bomaunt 
of the Bose, and Marteau’s edition of the Original 
French text 244 

Index of Passages from Chaucer’s Works and the English 

Bomaunt of the Bose quoted or referred to in the text 249 

Index of Passages from the Boman de la Bose quoted or referred 
to in the text 


261 


1 


i 


f. 


A ■ 


INTRODUCTION 


Much has been written on the subject of Chaucer and the 
Roman de la Bose; but there is considerable diversity of 
opinion on the relative influence of Guillaume de Lorris and 
Jean de Meung upon the English poet. Some commentators 
hold that the author of the first part of the Roman, around 
whose w^ork a large school of followers sprang up, exercised 
a dominating effect on the minor and earlier poems of 
Chaucer; others maintain that only the part written by 
Jean de Meung appealed to Chaucer, and that Guillaume’s 
production was made little use of not only by the author of 
the Canterhury Tales but even by the comparatively 
young and inexperienced poet of the BooU of the Duchess, 
As illustrations of the contradictory views held, we may 
glance at the conclusions a few of the investigators have 
reached. 

Sandras was the first to make a wholesale attribution of 
Chaucer’s work to the influence of the early French poets. 
Near the beginning of his Etude he says: ^M1 imite les 
poetes latins, Virgile, Ovide, Stace, Lucain, Juvenal ; il fait 
des emprunts a Dante, a Petrarque, a Boccace; il traduit 
line grande partie du Roman de la Rose, et, a chaque page, 
a chaque ligne de ses ecrits, se trahit, tantot deguisee, 
tantot manifeste, une reminiscence de nos trouveres. ’ ’ But 
what the French savant had to say about Chaucer and the 
authors of the Roman de la Rose is more to the point for our 


1 


2 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


study, and may be repeated here: '^11 [Chaucer] en tra- 
duisit une partie, et il y prit des inspirations continuelles. 
C’est au point que ce poete, qui sentait les beautes de la 
nature, qui savait les peindre, se content souvent dans ses 
descriptions d’etre la copiste de G. de Lorris; que cet erudit, 
qui certainement avait lu des Decades de Tite-Live, alors 
mises en faveur et par Petrarque et par le traduction de 
Pierre Bercheure, reproduit Thistoire romaine telle que J. 
de Meung la lui transmet, alteree par Pimagination des con- 
teurs; que cet homme de genie, qui merite d’etre place 
entre Aristophane et Moliere, arrive a la vieillesse, toujours 
sous le joug de 1 ’imitation, et n’ayant guere compose que 
des poemes allegoriques. Quand il renonce a cette poesie de 
cour si fausse, si manieree, et qu’il ecrit le Pelerinage de 
Canterbury, drame vivant et populaire, on retrouve dans 
son oeuvre les traits saillants qui caracterisent la seconde 
partie du Roman de la Rose, de longues tirades centre les 
femmes, et le ridicule jete a pleines mains sur les ordres 
religieux. Sans doute il remonte aux sources premieres on 
ont puise ses maitres, sans doute il etudie les ouvrages de 
leurs disciples, ses contemporains ; mais c’est a I’ecole de 
G. de Lorris que son gout s’est forme ou, si I’on vent, 
altere; c’est a I’ecole de Jean de Meung que s’est faconne 
son esprit. ’ ’ ^ 

Eighty years before Sandras wrote, Tyrwhitt had called 
attention to the fact that a number of passages in the 
Canterbury Tales appear to have been taken from the 
Roman de la Rose. He did not discuss his parallels, how- 

1 Etude sur G. Chaucer considere comme imitateur des trouveres, by 
Etienne Gustave Sandras (Paris, 1859), p. 36. 


CHAUCEK AND THE KOMAN DE LA EOSE 


3 


ever; they took the form of brief notes on the text. It is 
really with Sandras ^s bold and sweeping assertions that 
critical investigations into the relations of Chaucer and his 
French contemporaries and predecessors started. Students 
in other countries began to look for proofs of Chaucer’s 
indebtedness to the Roman de la Rose, and as a result of 
diligent search, the number of parallels has grown to a very 
large total. But the emphasis in nearly every case has been 
on the side of the influence either of Jean de Meung or of 
Guillaume de Lorris; the critics apparently have not been 
able to reconcile Chaucer to both at once. 

Van Laun writes: ^^Of his two originals, Chaucer decid- 
edly preferred the flrst [Lorris], both from the natural 
bent of his mind and also because he would readily per- 
ceive that Englishmen would not tolerate the license of 
Jean de Meung. . . . Indeed, his genius Avas cast in a 
different mould from that of Jean de Meung, who was nat- 
ural philosopher first, and romancist afterwards. Chaucer, 
like Guillaume de Lorris, was before all a romancist. ’ ’ ^ 

Lounsbury, Avriting some ten years later, remarks: ‘Mt 
ought to be said that it [i. e., the Roman de la Rose] is his 
[Chaucer’s] favorite work, as regards adaptation, only so 
far as it is the composition of Jean de Meung. The portion 
of it composed by Lorris receives from him scant attention 
in this respect. From that part of the poem that exists for 
us in the English translation, he dreAV but little, and that 
little consists of nothing more than single Avords and 
phrases. ’ ’ ^ 

^History of French Literature (London, 1883), I, pp. 183, 184. 

3 Studies in Chancery by T. K. Lounsbury (London, 1892), II, p. 220. 


4 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Skeat refers the student to Lounsbury for a discussion of 
the learning of Chaucer, but in his brief account of Chau- 
cer’s authorities, says: ^‘He [Chaucer] was perfectly 

familiar with the French of the continent, and was under 
great obligations to Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de 
Meung, and to Guillaume de Machault. ’ ’ ^ 

On the whole, criticism since 1890 has tended to make 
prominent Chaucer’s borrowings from Jean de*Meung and 

V 

to reduce his debt to Guillaume de Lorris. Koeppel, writing 
in 1892 on Jean de Meung ’s influence on Chaucer, con- 
cludes: ‘‘So sind wir unserem dichter an zahllosen stellen 
auf den wegen Jelian de IMeung’s begegnet. Aber weder 
des meisters noch des schiilers andenken hat durch die voile 
erkentniss ihres verhaltnisses gelitten. Chaucer’s kunst, die 
feine massigung, mit welcher er die schonungslose weisheit 
der Franzosen verwertet, fordert unsere aufrichtige bewun- 
derung, und Jehan de Meung ’s bedeutende, aber wenig 
anziehende gestalt wird von dem strahl, der von Chaucer’s 
glanzender erscheinung auf sie zuriickfallt, verschonernd 
getroffen. ’ ’ ^ 

]\Iiss Cipriani believes that the influence of the Roman de 
la Rose on Chaucer shows itself more distinctly in the 
V Troilus than in any other single poem; of the Troilus she 
says in summary : “ (a) There is an indirect influence of the 
Roman de la Rose through Boccaccio, which introduces ele- 
ments characteristic of the first part of the French poem, 
(b) The changes in. the character of Pandarus all show 
tendencies which coincide with the satirical attitude of 

^Complete Worlcs of Chaucer, VI, pp. xcviii, c. (1894). 

5 Chauceriana, by E. Koeppel, in Anglia, XIV, p. 267. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


5 


Jean de Meung toward love. The additions of Chaucer to 
the Filostrato are also primarily in the spirit and with the 
method and material used by Jean de Meung. (c) But the 
influence of Jean de Meung on Chaucer is most important 
in the ethical teaching with which Chaucer ends the love 
story, making the Troylus a Tendenzroman, in which the 
folly of love is shown in order to lead the reader to the love 
of Christ and eternal salvation. ’ ^ ^ 

Miss Hammond does not mention Guillaume de Lorris, 
but emphatically writes: ‘^The depth of de Meung ’s influ- 
ence upon Chaucer is unsurpassed by that of any writer 
except Boethius. ’ ’ ^ 

It is perhaps not inappropriate that this list of critics 
should end, as it began, wdth a Frenchman. Legouis, 
who has recently written a most readable book on Chaucer, 
emphasizes, like Sandras, the influence of Guillaume de 
Lorris on the English poet, and devotes eleven pages to a 
discussion of Chaucer a Fecole de nos trouveres.’’ But 
the second part of the Roman is not overlooked, even if 
Jean de Meung ’s name is. For, after speaking of the 
sources of the Canterbury Tales, Legouis says: Encore ne 

sont-ce la que les plus notables emprunts faits par Chaucer, 
ceux des sujets ou des genres. Dans Finterieur meme de 
ses cadres, il continuera de deverser abondamment, selon 
son usage, les maximes et les images, les developpements et 
Ferudition qui lui viennent de ses lectures, surtout de ces 

6 Studies in the Influence of the Eoman de la Bose on Chaucer, by 
Lisi Cipriani. Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc. 1907. 

7 Chaucer: a Bibliographical Manual, by Eleanor P. Hammond 

(Macmillan, 1908), p. 79. 


6 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


deux livres dont il faisait sa societe constante : le Roman cle 
la Rose et les Consolations de Boece/’ ® 

So it may be seen that although critics agree in the main 
on the extraordinary influence which the Roman de la 
Rose as a whole exerted upon Chaucer, they are by no 
means at one on the relative debt of the English poet to 
Lorris and Meung. We might naturally suppose that 
Chaucer borrowed more from Jean de Meung since Meung 
wrote more than four-fifths of the long French poem. But 
such an inference, without any other premise than that of 
proportional number of lines, would be absurd. For if 
Chaucer had liked Lorris ’s work and had not liked 
Meung ’s, Jean might have written a hundred thousand 
lines not one of which Chaucer would have used; whereas 
he might well have referred to Guillaume’s four thousand 
constantly. Clearly, the work of each poet, unlike as 
Guillaume and Jean were, appealed to Chaucer for one 
purpose or another, as numerous unquestioned adaptations 
by the English poet from ioth parts of the Roman attest. 

Wliat was Chaucer’s opinion of the Roman de la Rose? 
What parts of it appealed to him most? AYhat is the 
nature of his borrowings from the French poem? How 
did he adapt and use the passages that he took over ? These 
are pertinent questions, and as such are worthy an answer. 
They have not been answered by the critics we have quoted 
from, except in a most general way. Nor have they, indeed, 
been answered by any of Chaucer’s commentators. Those 
investigators who have pointed out the largest number of 

8 Geoffroy Chaucer, by Emile Legouis (Les grands ecrivains 
etrangers, Paris, 1910), p. 151. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


7 


parallel passages have given us the least discussion of 
them. Moreover, the usual method of procedure in the 
study of the relations between Chaucer and Guillaume de 
Lorris and Jean de Meung has been what we may call the 
chronological method; that is, to take up Chaucer’s poems 
in the order in which they were written, so far as their 
dates have been established, and to cite from the Roman de 
la Bose parallels to the English lines. A different method, 
which we may call the topical method, that is, to classify 
Chaucer’s borrowings from the Roman de la Rose accord- 
ing to the nature of the passages taken over, has not been 
followed hitherto, though it might well have been. Each 
has its advantages and disadvantages, obviously; and the 
chronological method would naturally precede the topical. 
For in tracing the sources of a poem or group of poems, 
one ordinarily reads that poem or that group of poems as 
a whole. And it goes without saying that before one can 
classify a miscellaneous collection of parallels, one must 
first get the parallels. But the topical method has a dis- 
tinct value, once the parallels have been collected so that 
the critic may classify them, for it furnishes definite in- 
formation as to the nature of the poet’s interests. 

It is perhaps unnecessary to remind ourselves here that 
there are parallels and parallels. The Tropics of Capricorn 
and Cancer are parallels, but they are not very close ! In 
the question of Chaucer’s borrowings from the Roman de la 
Rose, of his use of the Roman de la Bose, it is imperative, 
if we are to come to any useful conclusion, to determine first 
what he actually did consciously adapt from the French 
poem. Specific adaptations must be distinguished from 


8 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


slight correspondences. It is true that many a slight corre- 
spondence may be the result of deliberate adaptation and 
change of the borrowed material, but such a case is ex- 
tremely difficult to prove. On the other hand, the fact that 
two passages are alike may be accidental and the result of 
entirely independent thinking. Furthermore, it should not 
be forgotten, that Chaucer was very well-read for his time, 
and that his library was considerably larger even than Jean 
de Meung^s. Moreover, Chaucer read many of Jean de 
Meung’s sources in the original. Nevertheless, there is value 
in a collection of reminiscences and echoes ; and in the case 
of two poets one of whom w^e know read and admired the 
other, even vague resemblances between the later man’s 
work and the earlier man’s are not without significance. 
But first we must always attempt to establish the conscious 
imitations. The unconscious make fairly good supporting 
evidence, but have little probative force. 

The object of the present volume is three-fold: (1) To 

examine all the parallels between Chaucer’s work and the 
Roman de la Bose that have hitherto been recorded, and 
to separate from doubtful or fortuitous resemblances what 
we may in all reason be sure are deliberate borrowings; 
(2) to present new parallels, of both kinds, that have 
hitherto not been recorded; and (3) to attempt to deter- 
mine from the evidence at hand Chaucer’s attitude toward 
the Roman de la Rose, the use he made of the poem, and 
the effect that it had, as the work of two entirely different 
authors and as a whole, on the English poet’s literary pro- 
duction. The method of procedure is fundamentally top- 
ical, although I have endeavored to keep the advantages 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


9 


of the chronological method by following within the chap- 
ters the order of poems or sections of poems as we think 
Chaucer wrote them. 

All references to Chaucer are made to Skeat’s six-volume 
edition of the Complete Works (Oxford). References to 
the Roman de la Rose are to Michel’s two-volume edition 
(Paris, 1864) unless otherwise stated. I have used Michel’s 
text, not because it is the best — in many ways his edition 
is the poorest of the three nineteenth-century editions — 
but because it is the most convenient and accessible. Meon’s 
edition in four volumes (Paris, 1814), which Sandras, 
Koeppel, and Skeat used, is rare; and Marteau’s edition 
in five volumes in the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne (Orleans, 
1878-80), although it is the best of the three, seems to be 
little known and almost never cited. For the reader’s 
convenience in verifying in these three editions references 
that he may find to any of them, I have appended at the 
end of this book a comparative table of the numbering of 
the lines. 

In some cases, references to parallel passages pointed out 
by Miss Cipriani, Koeppel, and Skeat are followed by the 
initial of the investigator: thus, (C) (K) (S). The (C) 
so used should not be confused with the reference to the 
third division of the Canterbury Tales, where the letter 
always precedes the number. The abbreviation RR. always 
signifies the French text ; Rom., the Middle English transla- 
tion. 


I 


Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose 


CHAPTER I 

The Influence op the Roman de la Rose on Chaucer’s 

Reading 

Chaucer’s early literary career is more or less direct 
proof that the poet meant what he said when he wrote 

And as for me thogh that I can but lyte, 

On bokes for to rede I me delyte, 

And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, 

And in myn herte have hem in reverence 
So hertely, that ther is game noon 
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, 

But it be seldom, on the holyday. (L. 29-35) 

Later on (Prol. A. 273-274) we have a reference to the 
size of the poet’s library, when the god of Love says to 
Chaucer, 


Sixty bokes olde and newe 
Hast thou thy-self, alle fulle of stories grete. 

In a poem which all critics agree is one of the earliest, if 
not the earliest, of Chaucer’s genuine poems that have 
come down to us — the Booh of the Duchess — the poet is re- 


11 


12 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


vealed as a- man already acquainted with a considerable 
body of literature. This poem furnishes incontrovertible 
evidence that Chaucer had read in Ovid, Machault, the 
authors of the Roman de la Rose^ and other minor writers. 
There are a number of passages in the Book of the Duchess 
that go back ultimately to Boethius, though it is clear, as 
Skeat has shown, ^ that Chaucer got all these illustrations 
at second hand from the Roman. Except for Machault, 
whose influence does not appear to have made itself felt 
upon Chaucer to any great extent after the Book of the 
Duchess was written (if we disregard metrics), these 
, writers and hooks — Ovid, the Roman de la Rose, and 
Boethius — had a permanent effect on our poet throughout 
his life. As Legouis says, the Roman and the Consolations 
were his constant companions. It is signiflcant that in this 
youthful work we should And use made of the one book 
that was to he, perhaps, Chaucer ^s favorite volume above 
all others — the Roman de la Rose. It was probably his 
favorite volume in 1369. And if it be true, as Skeat con- 
jectures and as appears very probable, that Chaucer’s 
attention was first drawn to ‘‘Boece de Confort” through 
his perusal of the French poem,^^ the English poet owed 
Jean de Meung no small additional debt for introduction to 
so fine a book as the Consolations. Of course, it is almost 
certain that if Jean de Meung had not mentioned Boethius, 
had not used him at all, Chaucer would have heard of the 
Latin philosopher through some other source. Machault, 
for instance, makes a complimentary allusion to Boethius 

1 Chaucer, II, xix-xxi. 

la Especially RR. 5757-61. See Chaucer, II, pp. x, xx-xxi. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


13 


by name in the Confort d^Ami, written about 1356.^ 
Moreover, Boethius was well-known and his book revered 
all through the Middle Ages. But it is absurd to think 
of the Roman de la Bose without Boethius. Jean de Meung 
did make great use of the Consolations, a work w^hich was 
directly or indirectly responsible for more than five thou- 
sand lines of the second part of the French poem. On 
the whole, the circumstantial evidence is strong that the 
late fifth-century philosopher was introduced to Chaucer 
by the thirteenth-century satirist and encyclopedist — Jean 
de Meung. 

But Guillaume de Lorris must not be deprived of his 
share of the glory that every good teacher, merely by his 
information-giving qualities, is entitled to. The only book 
that Guillaume mentions — ^Macrobius^s commentary on the 
Somnium Scipionis — was not overlooked by the student 
Geoffrey. Chaucer’s earliest reference to this treatise 
occurs in the Book of the Duchess: 


2 See Tarbe, pp. xxvi-xxvii, for a discussion of the date. The refer- 
ence to Boethius, which can be found in Tarbe, p. 97, runs as follows : 


Et vues tu clerement savoir, 

Sans riens enclore, tout le voir 
Dont vient richesse et noblesse; 
Eesgarde en livre de Boesse 
Que te dira, se oir le vues, 

Que tons les biens que perdre pues 
Sont de fortune, qui moult tost 
Le bien qu’elle a donne tout tost. 


Ne nat scarsly Macrobeus 
(He that wroot al the avisioun 
That he mette, king Scipioun, 
The noble man, the Affrican . . .) 
I trowe, a-rede my dremes even. 


(287) 

(289) 


(284) 


14 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


The lines in the Roman de la Bose run; 

Un acteur qui ot non Macrobes, 

Qui ne tint pas songes a lobes ; 

Angois escrist la vision, 

Qui avint au roi Cipion. (7-10) 

Clearly the English poet was following Guillaume de Lor- 
ris’s lines almost literally. The fact that Chaucer adds 
the information that Scipio was ^Hhe Affrican’’ — a point 
that Guillaume does not mention — does not affect the 
soundness of the theory that Chaucer first heard of Macro- 
bius and Scipio^s Dream through the French poet. Scipio 
Africanus was the common name of the Roman general, 
whom Chaucer had possibly heard of in his school-days. 
Just as Guillaume appeals to Macrobius as an authority on 
dreams, so Chaucer says that this Latin writer would be 
put to considerable difficulty to interpret the wonderful 
vision the account of which is to follow in the Booh of the 
Duchess, Before he wrote the Parlement of Foides, how- 
ever, Chaucer had certainly looked into Macrobius for 
himself. 

These two probable cases of the English poet’s becoming 
acquainted through the Roman de la Rose with books which 
he used later in his work — one of them, indeed, becoming a 
life-long friend and the other a convenient authority to 
allude to, as in the Nonne Preestes Tale, — lead us to believe 
that perhaps other authors were either introduced to 
Chaucer by Jean de Meung, or at least recommended by 
him as worth reading. To be sure, in the absence of ex- 
ternal proof, it is hazardous to insist on the theory, espe- 


CHAUCEK AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


15 


cially as it is pretty certain that Chaucer’s opportunities 
for extensive reading were as great as Jean de Meung’s. 
But the fact that, as we shall see in later chapters of this 
book, the English poet went to the Frenchman for every 
sort of illustration, seemingly regarding the Roman as a 
sort of universal cyclopedia of useful knowledge, and the 
fact that of the twenty-four writers Jean de Meung men- 
tions and uses, Chaucer knew either at first or second hand 
all but four — these two facts give us courage to suggest 
that in a pretty real sense Jean de Meung was Chaucer’s 
schoolmaster. 

Let us look briefiy at the literary history of the poem 
which the English poet knew so early and so intimately. 
The Roman de la Rose was finished nearly sixty }^ears 
before Chaucer was born.^ There are to-day several hun- 
dred manuscripts of it in existence. The British Museum 
alone has thirteen, five of which date from the fourteenth 
century.^ The fact that so large a number of hand-written 
copies should have been preserved in addition to the 
twenty-one printed editions between 1480 and 1538 is indic- 
ative of widespread favor. Another significant phenome- 
non in the history of the Roman de la Rose is this, noted by 

3 Langlois, in Petit de Julleville ’s Histoire de la langue et de 
la litterature frangaise (Paris, 1878-1900), says that Guillaume de 
Lorris’s portion of the poem was finished somewhere between 1225 
and 1230 (Vol. II, p. 108), and that Jean de Meung took up the 
work about 1270 (p. 127). Pierre Marteau has shown by internal 
evidence that the poem must have been completed by 1282 (in his 
edition of the Eoman, I, p. xxiii), for in lines 7373-7381 Charles of 
Anjou is mentioned as the reigning king of Sicily. Now, Charles of 
Anjou died in 1285, but he had been driven out of Sicily in 1282. 

4 See F. W. Bourdillon : The Early Editions of the Eoman de la Ease 
(London, 1906. Printed for the Bibliographical Society). 


16 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Ellis: ‘‘Strange to say, except the translation made by 

Chaucer and either one or two other contemporary hands, 
of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-eight lines, no 
attempt has been made to present it (i.e., the French poem) 
in any other European language, with the single exception 
of a German rendering into verse of the first part, by H. 
Fahrmann, printed in 1839.’’^ 

As a half-way exception to Ellises statement we might 
mention an Italian poem of the thirteenth century, named 
II Fiore, consisting of two hundred and thirty-two sonnets 
imitated from the Roman de la Bose — an indication that 
the French poem must soon have become known in Italy. 
Miss Cipriani has shown that Boccaccio knew the Roman 
and used it in his Filostrato, and Sandras tells us that 
Petrarch had a copy of the Roman, though he did not care 
for the poem.^^ The very dearth of translations is, I be- 
lieve, but another proof of a general knowledge of the 
French poem. The original material, which was presented 
in a language certainly understood by the educated classes 
of England and Italy, was so absorbed and adapted into 
the literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
that no need of a translation was felt. And it was 
through Jean de Meung’s infiuence that the Roman de la 
Rose as a whole became popular; for Guillaume de Lorris’s 
portion of it lay practically unimitated for forty years.® 

5 The Romance of the Bose, Englished and Edited by F. S. Ellis 
(Dent), Vol. I, p. viii. 

Etude, p. 68. Sandras cites Petrarch ^s Carm. Bk. I, ep. 30. 

6 See F. M. Warren: Ou the Bate and Composition of Guillaume 
de Lorris^s Eoman de la Bose. Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 1908. War- 
ren misinterprets the fact that there is in existence only one MS. 


CHAUCEK AND THE EOMAN DE LA LOSE 


17 


One of the fundamental differences between the two 
parts of the Roman de la Rose is that the object of the 
earlier writer was primarily to amuse; the object of the 
second, to instruct. Guillaume de Lorris gave his century 
a hand-book of the art of love; Jean de Meung, a guide 
to almost everything else. Both evidently took their work 
seriously; though Jean appears to have regarded with not 
a little ridicule the production of Guillaume. The second 
half of the poem (if we may so speak of de Meung ’s eight- 
een thousand lines) was written in a period in many 
respects different from that forty years before, for in the 
last half of the thirteenth century new social and political 
conditions had arisen. For example, the orders of friars, 
founded during the first quarter of the century, had become 
powerful and, we may believe Jean de Meung, corrupt. 
There was a general movement to free science and learning 
from the yoke of the church. A kind of renaissance had 
begun in France during the last half of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, one result of which was the founding by 1320 of no 
less than six colleges for the common people. Teaching in 
the vernacular was taken up. Many cyclopedias of gen- 
eral learning appeared, the authors of which wished to 
let the laity share in part of the knowledge of the clergy. 

of the first part of the Homan de la Hose not followed by the portion 
by Jean de Meung. He infers from this unique copy (B. N. fr. 12786) 
that the part written by Guillaume de Lorris was unknown until Jean 
de Meung produced his own continuation of the poem. As a matter 
of fact, the literary influence of the Homan appears to have been 
negligible until after the appearance of the whole poem ; but Langlois 
is of the opinion that even before Jean -wrote, the work of Guillaume 
de Lorris was widely read. See Les Mamiscrits du Homan de la Hose, 


18 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


The continuation of the Roman de la Rose by Jean de 
Meung was one of these cyclopedias, says Langlois, and for 
the instruction of the people at large the poet inserted into 
his long poem the good things of as many Latin works as 
he could incorporate. 

It is pertinent to ask, Why did Jean de Meung ’s cyclo- 
pedia become so popular if it was only one of a large 
number of works on general learning? There are several 
reasons that might be suggested, but the most probable 
seems to me this: Jean de Meung realized with Horace that 

Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci ; 
for the Frenchman, speaking of the purpose of poets, says : 

Profit et delectation 

C^est toute lor entencion. (RR. 16179-80) 

His good sense in recognizing that the educational pill must 
be sugar-coated and his judgment in selecting the flavor 
of the coating are responsible without doubt for the fact 
that the public eagerly took what he had to give it. To 
Guillaume de Lorris’s ^Govers’ guide-book’^ — ^which, if we 
keep the figure, was the sugar-coating — was due in no small 
measure the success of the Roman de la Rose as a whole. 
Jean de Meung took up and continued his predecessor’s 
work because he saw that his predecessor’s work would 
promote his. And if we may judge from the literary imi- 
tations which the Roman inspired during the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, the coating proved the more accept- 
able part of the medicine. The attacks w^hich the court 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


19 


and clergy began to make on the poem at the end of the 
fourteenth century were all directed against Jean de 
Meung’s portion. 

Jean de Meung’s authorities were numerous as well as 
esteemed. The investigations of Langlois into the 
origins and sources of the Roman de la Rose afford mate- 
rial for a comparison of the learning of Jean de Meung with 
the learning of Chaucer. Of the authors and books besides 
Boethius and the Bible which are mentioned and used by 
Jean, the following appear in Chaucer’s work also:^ St. 
Augustine,® Horner,^ Plato,^^ Aristotle,^^ Theophrastus,^^ 
Ptolemy,^® the Almagest, Cicero,^^ Vergil,^® Livy,^^ 
Ovid,^® Lucan,^^ Suetonius,^^ Juvenal,-^ Claudian,-^ Vale- 


7 The numbers below refer to the Roman de la Bose. The references 
in Chaucer may easily be found by consulting Skeat ’s Index of 
Proper Names {Chaucer , VI, pp. 359-380). 

8 12239. 

9 7516, 14560. 

10 7852, 7846, 13830, 19995. 

11 9700, 18966, 19132. 

12 9310. 

13 7781, 14578. 

14 7783, 19506. 

15 Tulles 5151, 5469, 6128; Tides 17132. Chaucer has Tullius seven- 
teen times. 

16 9758, 17262, 17523, 20101, 22327. 

17 6329, 6369, 9365, 17274. The name always appears as Titus 
Livius in the Roman. Chaucer has Titus twice, Titus (or Tytus) Livius 
three times. He does not use Livy or Livius alone. 

18 8737, 14560, 21113, 22443. J. de Meimg does not use Naso, 
though Chaucer has the name three times. 

19 6395. 

20 7194. 

21 9038, 9458, 9486, 9891, 22437. 

22 7091. 


20 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


rius,^^ Heloise.^^ Of the other writers whose names appear 
in the Roman de la Rose — Pythagoras, Sallust, Horace, 
Solinus, Justinian, Albumazar, Abelard — Chaucer mentions 
none, though he appears to have known Horace, Sallust, 
and Justinian at second hand. Chaucer does speak of 
Aleyn (PP. 316), but curiously enough Jean de Meung 
does not once refer by name to the author of the De Planctu 
Naturae and the Anticlaudianus, works to which he owed 
directly or indirectly more than two thousand lines. Jean 
de Meung used, moreover, many minor authorities whose 
names, for reasons of his own, he did not see fit to mention. 
And so did Chaucer. Indeed, Chaucer never speaks of Jean 
de Meung, and only once refers indirectly to the author of 
the Roman , — 

For out of doute, I verraily suppose. 

That he that wroot the Romance of the Rose 
Ne coude of it the beautee wel devyse.^^ 

Finally, it should be remembered that Chaucer ^s use of 
the sources he has in common with Jean de Meung often 
differs from the Frenchman's use of them. This fact, 
however, does not constitute an objection to the theory that 
Chaucer heard of many of these very sources through 
Jean’s reference to them. Of course, the English poet 
investigated for himself, and read at first hand where the 
originals were accessible. 

We have seen that it is likely that Chaucer, acting upon 

23 9440, 9470, 9478, 10168. 

24 9507, 9554. 

25 Marchantes Tale (E), 2031-33. The he of line 2032 is Guillaume 
de Lorris, says Skeat. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


21 


definite hints thrown out in the Roman de la Bose, read 
in the Latin for himself Boethius and Macrobius. With 
some of the ancient writers it appears that Chaucer had 
to be satisfied with an indirect acquaintance, just as Jean 
de Meung had to be. As we shall see in the next chapter, 
there is no convincing evidence that either Chaucer or 
jMeung knew Livy and Suetonius at first hand any more 
than they knew Theophrastus directly. Nor have we much 
reason to believe that either the English or the French 
poet had seen Ptolemy’s Almagest, though both refer 
directly to it and ostensibly quote from it. Chaucer, in 
the Wife of Bath’s allusions to Ptolemy, is clearly follow- 
ing Jean de Meung, just as he was following the French 

26 Skeat, in his Index of Authors Quoted or Referred To (Vol. VI, 
pp. 384ff.), implies that Chaucer knew Ptolemy’s Almagest at first 
hand. The only evidence is a gloss in the Ellsmere MS. to the Man of 
Lawes Tale, (B) 295ff., which says, ^^Unde Ptholomeus, libro I, cap. 
8.” But Chaucer’s use of the Almagest elsewhere leads us to believe 
that he probably derived his information about the nine revolving 
heavens from some intermediate source, possibly Dante ’s Convito, 
Bk. II, chapters 3-4. 

The citations from the Almagest which connect themselves directly 
with the Boman de la Bose are the two made by the Wife of Bath, 
(D) 182-3, 324-7. In a note to the first of these passages Skeat 
says, ‘‘With regard to its being written in Ptolemy’s Almagest, 
Tyrwhitt quaintly remarks: ‘I suspect that the Wife of Bath’s copy 
was very different from any that I have been able to meet with 
. . . ’ I have no doubt that the Wife is simply copying for con- 
venience these words in the Boman de la Bose: 

Car nous lisons de Tholomee 

Une parole moult honest e 

Au comencier de s’Almageste, etc. (7781ff.) 

Jean de Meung then cites a passage of quite another kind, but the 
Wife of Bath did not stick at such a trifle.” {Chaucer, V, p. 295.) 


22 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


poet in the story of Nero, where he refers to ^‘Swetonius,’’ 
and in the story of Virginius, where he mentions Titus 
Livius.’^ 

Chaucer’s extensive use of many different parts of the 
Roman de la Rose in the Book of the Duchess makes it 
clear that before 1369 the poet was familiar with the 
French poem as a whole; that he had not only read thor- 
oughly the part written by Guillaume de Lorris but also 
that by Jean de Meung. If this is true, we are justified in 
believing that the English poet’s acquaintance with many 
of the writers he was to know more intimately later, was 
made through the authoritative pages of the Roman. For 
everyone ’s learning has to start somewhere ; from the very 
beginning of his literary career, so far as a record of it 
has been preserved to us, Chaucer seems to have been 
familiar with the French poem. None of the other writers 

Skeat does not mention the fact that the Duenna’s glib allusion to 

Tholomee, 

Par qui fu moult science amee (14578-9), 

and in fact all the references to him in the Bomaii de la Bose gave 
Langlois as much trouble as the Wife caused Tyrwhitt. The French 
critic writes, ‘ ^ J ’ai vainement cherche dans les oeuvres de Ptolem4e les 
trois passages cites sous son nom dans le Roman de la Rose (vers 
7781-85, 14576-79, 19502-9); je n’en ai trouve aucuns. ” (Sources et 
origines, p. 110.) 

Can it be merely coincidence that both poets should credit Ptolemy 
with proverbs that two excellent critics have not been able to run 
down? One is tempted to believe that through some gloss in his MS. 
of the Boman de la Bose Chaucer was referred to a book that went 
under the name of Ptolemy during the Middle Ages and that has not 
come down to us. It could hardly be that the English poet was so 
well acquainted with the Almagest that he knew that Jean de Meung 
was ‘ * bluffing. ’ ’ 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


23 


he drew upon for material in the Book of the Duchess could 
have furnished our poet with a list of authorities worthy 
of study. 


CHAPTER II 


Allusions to Historical and Legendary Persons and 

Places 

NERO 

Two of the stories included in the Monkes Tale, and the 
Phisiciens Tale of Apius and Virginius, are the only ex- 
tended narratives which critics say Chaucer derived from 
the Roman de la Rose. And these are not attributed unre- 
servedly to the influence of the French poem. 

The flrst of these stories, the account of Nero (B. 3653- 
3740), according to Skeat, makes use of three sources par- 
ticularly; Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, lib. 
vii, cap. 4 ; the Roman de la Rose, 11. 6911-87, 7171 ff . ; and 
Boethius’s De Consolatione PhilosopMae, bk. II, met. vi, 
bk. Ill, met. iv. Jean de Meung’s information about Nero 
was probably not drawn from the Lives of the Twelve 
Caesars^ although the French poet refers not only to this 
book by name, but to its author, Suetonius (RR. 7191-94). 
Chaucer, too, mentions Suetonius, but his line 

As telleth us Swetonius, (B. 3655) 

was pretty clearly suggested by Jean de Meung’s 

Si cum Suetonius I’escript, (RR. 7194) 

for Boethius does not mention the author of the Twelve 
Caesars. Skeat says that Chaucer took some details in his 


24 


CHAUCEE AND THE KOMAN DE LA KOSE 


25 


account from Suetonius, but there is no evidence that our 
poet was familiar with this Latin author. Langlois says 
that as for Jean^s narrative of Nero’s crimes against his 
mother, brother, sister, the senators, and Seneca, ‘‘rien ne 
prouve que Jean ait connu Suetone” (p. 130). It would 
appear, then, that Chaucer ’s information concerning ' ^ Swe- 
tonius” was really third hand. Jean’s allusion to the hor- 
rible circumstances and motive of the death of Agrippina 
is found neither in Boethius nor in Suetonius. Langlois 
observes, ‘^Pendant tout le moyen age on a cru et repete 
que Neron avait fait ouvrir le ventre de sa mere pour 
voir ou il avait pris naissance. C ’est un passage de Tacite,^ 
celui de Suetone que je viens de rappeler,^ et un autre de 
Dion Cassius,^^ qui ont donne naissance a cette legende” 
(p. 129). Moreover, neither Boethius nor Suetonius hints 
that Nero outraged his sister .\ Jean de Meung refers to this 
crime (RR. 6944), with which the Middle Ages often 
reproached the wicked emperor.^ The murder of Seneca is 
alluded to in Boethius^ and Vincent de Beauvais.® In this 
episode Chaucer is pretty clearly following the Roman de la 
Rose; for the motive of the crime is the same in both 

1 Adspexeritne matrem corporis exanimem Nero, et formam corporis 
eius laudaverit, sunt qui tradiderint, sunt qui abnuant. Annales 
XIY, ix. 

2 Ad visendum interfectae cadaver accurrisse, contrectasse membra, 
alia vituperasse, alia laudasse, sitique interim aborta bibisse. Nero, 
xxxiv. 

2 a Historiae Bomanae, LXI, xiv. 

3 See Langlois, p. 130, for an enumeration of the medieval authors 
who refer to this incident. None of them was known to Chaucer, 
probably. 

4 De Cons. Fhih, III, pr. 5. 

5 Speculum historiale, X, 9. 


26 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


accounts. Langlois remarks, ‘^Nulle part je n’ai rencontre 
le motif indique par Jean de Meun, que Neron, jugeant 
indigne d’un empereur Thabitude qu’il avait prise dans 
son enfance de se lever en presence de son maitre, ne trouva 
d ’autre moyen de la perdre que de se debarrasser de 
Seneque.” (p. 130.) 

Skeat, as noted above, names Boccaccio’s De Casihus as 
a main source for the Monk’s tale of Nero,® but he nowhere 
points out any definite borrowings. On examination of 
the story as Chaucer tells it, I find that the English poet 
had to go no farther than Boethius and Jean de Meung 
for his material, with the possible exception of stanza two.*^ 
Furthermore, the account in the Roman de la Rose follows 
Boethius so closely in places that it is practically impos- 
sible in some lines to decide which was Chaucer’s imme- 
diate original. In a note to B. 3669 ff., Skeat says, ^‘This 
passage follows Boethius, bk. II, met. 6, very closely, as is 
evident by comparing it with Chaucer’s translation.” But 
this translation, it should be observed, is eked out by many 
glosses, which Miss Cipriani has cleverly shown might 
have been derived from the Roman de la Rose.^ Moreover, 
Boethius is silent about Nero’s crime against his sister, and 
does not speak of the tyrant’s commanding wine to be 
brought to him after he has looked on the corpse of his 

6 Chaucer j V, p. 242. 

7 Possibly taken from Eutropius: Breviarum Historiae Eomanae, 
VII, ix. 

8 The following explanations which Chaucer has inserted in his 
translation of bk. II, met. 6, Miss Cipriani refers to the Eoman: 

Bo. 5-6 from RR. 6930-32, 

Bo. 8 from RR. 6928, 

Bo. 12-13, 15-16, 19, from RR. 6984-86. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


27 


mother. The Boman de la Bose has both details (11. 6940- 
42, 6944). Koeppel’s parallels, taken with what has just 
been said, prove conclusively that the Monk’s story of 
Nero owespaore directly to Jean de Meung than to 
Boethius.^ ]\K additional evidence is desired, it may be 
found in the agreement, hitherto unrecorded, I believe, of 
the two accounts describing the manner of Seneca’s death. 
Chaucer writes: 


And thus hath Nero slayn his maister dere. (3708) 
But natheles this Seneca the wyse (3705) 

Chees in a bath to deye in this manere 
Rather than han another tormentyse. (3707) 

... he [i. e., Nero] in a bath made him to 

blede (3699) 

On bothe his armes, til he moste dye. 

The Boman de la Bose has it thus ; 

Seneque mist-il a martire (6947) 

Son bon mestre, et li fist eslire 
De quel mort morir il vorroit. (6949) 

• •••••• 

Done soit, dist-il, uns bains chaufes, (6952) 


Puisque d’echaper est neans, 

Si me faites seignier leans, 

Si que je muire en I’iaue chaude, 

Et que m’ame joieuse et baude, 

A Dieu qui la forma ge rende, (6957) 

Qui d’autres tormens la defende! (6958) 


9 The German critic has pointed out the following close corre- 


spondences : 

B. 3669-70 

3672-75 !.RR.. 
3677-82 


f6926-27 
6929-42 
6944 


3701-704 RR. 6975-81 


B. 3719-24 RR. 7163-70 
3725-28 RR. 7173-79 
3732-33 \ r 7171-72 
3735-39 7183-88 


28 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


For the phrase bothe his armes” I have found no 
previous authority. It is entirely possible that when 
writing this phrase Chaucer had before him, or in mind, a 
manuscript picture of the death of the philosopher.^® 


CROESUS 

Tyrwhitt was the first to remark that this story (B. 
3917-56) seems to have been taken from the Roman de la 
Rose. The French account, extending from line 7225 to 
line 7358, includes a good deal of moralizing digression, 
much more than Chaucer will admit into the thirtv-four 
lines of his story. The English poet ’s narrative is straight- 
forward enough, although the denouement 

Anhanged was Cresus, the proude king. 

His royal trone mighte him nat availle (3949-50) 

comes very suddenly upon Phanie’s interpretation of her 
father’s dream. This abrupt ending suggests that Chaucer 
was tired of ^^swich ensaumples” — for the French text 
has a nineteen-line answer that the disgusted Croesus makes 
to his prophetic daughter. This, Chaucer passes by. Ex- 
cept for line 3918, where reference is made to Cyrus, Chau- 
cer did not go outside the Roman de la Rose for material ; 

10 The early editions and manuscripts of the noman de la Bose 
were plentifully supplied with illustrations. Marteau (V) reproduces 
some of the woodcuts that appeared in Jean Duprd’s edition (Paris, 
about 1493). In one of these Seneca is represented as sitting in a tub 
of water up to his waist. A surgeon is cutting the veins in the 
philosopher’s right arm, while a benevolent-looking old man stands 
behind Seneca. The artist doubtless meant this third figure for Nero 
(it wears a crown), but he has not made of it the monster that the 
text would lead us to imagine. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


29 


line 3918 he took from Boethius, hk. II, pr. 2.^^ Skeat has 
pointed out definite lines in Chaucer that agree with Jean 
de Meung\s account, and more might he added to his list. 
Compare, for instance: 

Of which he was so proud and eek so fayn. (3931) 
Thus warned she him ful plat and ful playn (3947) 


Anhanged was Cresus . . . (3949) 

His royal trone mighte him nat availle. (3950) 
Dont si grant fiance acueilli, (RR. 7247) 

Que comme fox s’enorgueilli ; (7248) 

Ainsinc le chastioit Phanie.^^ (7329) 

Qu’il ne se pot onques desfendre (7357) 

Qu’el n’el feist au gibet pendre. (7358) 


Koeppel has noted that lines B. 3940-3945 correspond 
with RR. 7277-7283. 

As is well known, Jean de Meung uses the histories of 

11 Nesciebas Croesum regem Lydorum Gyro paullo ante formida- 
bilem, mox deinde miserandum rogi flammis traditum, misso caelitus 
imbre defensum? 

12 B. 3917-22 is from RR. 7226-30 

3934-38 ‘‘ 7243-45 

3941 '' 7283 

3948 7249-50 But, as noted above, line 3918 

is not from the 'Roman de la Rose but from Be Cons. Phil. 

Skeat, following Sandras, also compares HE. 103-108 with RR. 
7225-27, and shows that Chaucer’s form Lyde was taken from the 
French. (HI, 248.) 

13 In Chaucer V, 246, Skeat says that Vincent of Beauvais ’s Specu- 
lum PListoriale, iii, 17, seems to be the account which is followed in the 
Roman de la Rose. But Langlois observes (p. 134), ^^L’episode de 
la mort de Cresus, tel qu’il est raconte dans Le Roman de la Rose, 
a pour point de depart une allusion de Boece, mais ses developpe- 
ments, en particulier le role de Phanie, fille de roi de Lydie, ne se 
trouvent que dans les Mythographes” (I, 196, et II, 190). 


30 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Nero, Emperor of Rome, and Croesus, King of Lydia, to 
illustrate the caprice of Fortune. Chaucer uses these 
stories in the same way, and it should be noticed that 
throughout the Monkes Tale emphasis is laid on the fickle- 
ness and falseness of the goddess.^^ Just as the French 
poet cites from contemporary history the destruction of 
Conradin and Manfred in Sicily by Charles of Anjou, 
Chaucer recalls briefly the comparatively recent events in 
the lives of Peter, King of Spain, and Peter, King of 
Cyprus. 

From what has been said, it will be seen that Boethius 
and Jean de Meung are entitled to a somewhat prominent 
place in the development of literature of the Falls of 
Princes type. 


SAMSON 

The story of Samson in the Monkes Tale does not empha- 
size so much the capriciousness of Fortune as the evil 
consequences of not keeping one’s secrets. It is possible 
that what Jean de Meung says of Samson and Dalila influ- 
enced at least slightly the line of development and the 
emphasis of the Monk’s story. To be sure, the account in 
the Roman de la Rose is very short, not more than a dozen 
lines (17614-17625), but it is used as a sort of exemplum 
to Genius’s long sermon on the foolishness of husbands 
who cannot keep their own counsel, but are lured by 
deceitful mistresses and wives to disclose what should not 
be told.^^ The conclusion to the Monk’s version— 

14 Cf. B. 3185-86, 3326, 3379, 3431*35, 3537, 3587, 3635-36, 3740, 
3773, 3851-52, 3953-56. 

15R.R. 17262 ff. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


31 


Beth war by this ensample old and playn 
That no men telle hir conseil til hir wyves 
Of swich thing as they wolde han secree fayn, 

If that it touche hir limmes or hir l^wes. (3281-84) 


seems to be a succinct ’summary of the warning given in 

^ ^ * 

the Roman 17478-17637/® An explanation of Chaucer’s 
form Dalida (B. 3253), which Skeat (V. 230) goes to some 
length to account for, may be found in Jean’s spelling of 
the word, which is exactly the same as Chaucer ’s : — 


Finally, compare B. 3253-57, 3261-62 with RR. 17614-26, 
9953-56. 


Tyrwhitt characteristically remarks in his notes to the 
Phisiciens Tale, ‘^In the Discourse, etc., I forgot to men- 
tion the Roman de la Rose as one of the sources of this 
tale; although, upon examination, I find that our author 
has drawn more from thence than from either Gower or 
Livy.” Skeat agrees with Tyrwhitt, and says, ^‘It is ab- 
surd to argue, as in Bell’s Chaucer, that our poet must 
necessarily have known Livy Gn the original’ and then 
to draw the conclusion that we must look to Livy only as 
the true source of the tale. . . The belief that Chaucer 

10 In his reference to Samson and Dalila (B. Duch. 738-739), 
among other stock pairs of woful lovers, Chaucer probably had in 
mind the passage in the Eoman, 9945-9956, which Koeppel pointed 
out. 


Ainsinc Sansons . . . 
Fu par Dalida deceus. 
Dalida la malicieuse. 


(RR. 9956) 
(RR. 17614) 


THE PHISICIENS TALE 


32 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


may have read the tale ‘‘in the originaP’ does not alter 
the fact that he trusted more to the French textl’’^'^ Jean 
de Meung may have used the Latin historian’s account, al- 
though, as Langlois says, “II est probable que cette imi- 
tation est faite de memoire, car Jean de Meung commet 
une inexactitude, en disant que Virginius a coupe la tete 
a sa fille.” Chaucer follows the French poet in having 
Virginius kill his daughter by cutting off her head. 

Skeat is rather misleading in stating that the English 
poet “trusted more to the French text” than to the Latin; 
for there is, indeed, very little detailed narrative about 
Virginia in the Roman de la Rose. In this poem Reason 
is haranguing the Lover on various themes, and the subject 
of justice leads her to a discussion of corrupt judges: 
“V “Many a judge who hangs a thief,” she says, “is the one 
who ought to be hanged for all the crimes he has done.” 
And then she plunges right into the story of Appius’s 
villainy : — 


Ne fist bien Apius^^ a pendre 

Qui fist a son serjant emprendre 

Par fans tesmoings, fauce querele 

Contre Virgine la pucele, etc. (RR. 6324-27) 

And having finished the narrative, which is after all 

17 WorJcs, V, p. 260. 

18 Livy writes, ^^Data venia, seducit filiam ac nutricem prope 
Cloacinae ad tabernas . . . atque ibi, ab lanio cultro arrepto, ^Hoc 
te uno, quo possum,’ ait, ^modo filia, in libertatem vindico. ’ Pectus 
deinde puellae transfigit, respectansque ad tribunal, ‘ Te, ’ inquit, 
‘Appi, tuumque caput sanguine hoc consecro. ’ ” Bk. Ill, chap. 48. 

19 J ean de Meung, Gower, and Chaucer all spell the name Apius; 
Livy, of course, has Appius. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


33 


nothing more than incidental illustrative allusion, Reason 
returns to her theme that judges are scoundrels: — 

Briefment juges font trop d ’outrages. (RR. 6394) 


and goes on to quote a proverb from Lucan. 

Chaucer’s indebtedness to the French as source is very 
much less than Skeat’s statements and parallels would lead 
one to think. The English critic calls attention to the 
following : 


C.l 

135-38 

165 

168-69 


RR. 6329-30 
6331-33 
cf. 6335-38 
6347-49 


C. 184 cf. RR. 6339-44 
203 6359-65 

255-276 6371-93 


Let us examine these correspondences in detail. Chaucer’s 
references to Livy (line 1) may very likely have been sug- 
gested by Jean’s ^‘Si cum dist Titus Livius”; but it does 
not necessarily follow, as Skeat would imply, that all Chau- 
cer knew of Livy was this reference to him. It is hard to 
see how lines 135-38 can be derived from 

Por ce qu’il ne pooit donter 

La pucele, qui n’avoit cure 

Ne de li ne de sa luxure. (6331-33) 

Nor, given the general situation, is there much resemblance 
between Chaucer’s lines 

And seyde, ‘‘lord, if that it be your wille, 

As dooth me right upon this pitous bille.” (165-66) 

20 I disregard for the present parallels drawn from other parts of 
the Eoman de la Bose, 


34 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


and the French 

Sire juges, donnes sentence 

Por moi, car la pucele est moie. (6335-36) 

Lines 168-69 are clearly from the passage cited by Skeat. 
Line 184, which reads ‘‘Which fro myn hous was stole 
upon a night,’’ is not much more like the French “De mon 
hostel me fu emblee” than like the Latin of Livy: “Puel- 
1am, domi suae natam, furtoque inde in domum Yirginii 
U'anslatam/’ Lines 203 ff. somewhat resemble PR. 6359- 
65; the “worthy knight” does recall “Li bons prodons, 
bons chevaliers.” The last passage (lines 255-276), or 
the summary of the events after the death of Virginia, fol- 
lows the French text closely ; but Skeat has not noted that 
262-266 are Chaucer’s own addition. 

It will thus be seen that not more than a score of lines 
in the English story can be surely traced to the influence 
of the Roman de la Rose. Moreover, the French account 
does not explain the relation between Claudius and Appius 
except through what is said in 6325 ; and there is nothing 
to correspond with the long passage in Chaucer telling of 
Appius ’s conspiracy with the “subtil cherl” (139-164). 
The poet was evidently drawing upon his imagination or 
some unknown source, for he follows neither Livy, Gower, 
nor Boccaccio.^^ As Skeat has observed, the flne dialogue 
included by lines 207 and 253 appears to be entirely orig- 
inal with Chaucer. The placing of this scene between Vir- 
ginius and his daughter in their own home is not found 

21 Gower, in Confessio Amantis, VII, 5131-5306, and Boccaccio, in 
De Claris Mulierihus, chap. 57, follow Livy essentially. 


CHAUCEK AND THE KOMAN DE LA KOSE 


35 


elsewhere before Chaucer. The description of Virginia, 
which, with the moralizing of the narrator, covers the first 
one hundred and twenty lines of the poem, is original ; that 
is, originally introduced; many of the details are conven- 
tional and reminiscent enough. 

The superiority of the Phisiciens Tale as a work of art, 
if we consider the story properly as beginning at line 105, 
is easily seen by comparing it with Gower ^s, Boccaccio’s, 
and Jean de Meung’s versions. Chaucer could not refrain 
from pointing a moral — a medieval propensity — ^but this 
is kept distinct from the narrative, once the story is under 
way. 2 ia events follow each other logically, the motives 
are clearly set forth, the various scenes are presented 
dramatically and vividly, and the conclusion hastens 
after the climax has been reached deliberately and feel- 
ingly. Altogether, there is a fine balance maintained, 
which one feels is lacking in the earlier poetic forms of 
this tragedy. And Chaucer is greatest in his original 
scenes and situations. Indeed, except for the summarizing 
passage at the end, we may say that the story is as much 
Chaucer’s own as Shakespeare’s Roman plays are his own. 
Furthermore, the Phisiciens Tale of Appius and Virginius 
may be remembered as perhaps the finest English telling 
of the story in substantially the form in which it has been 
popular in English literature even down to the nineteenth 
century. 

In addition to the extended records of historical or 

2 ialn his discussion of the Phisiciens Tale, Tatlock proposes and 
elaborates the theory that Chaucer was trying to make the story point 
a moral to Elizabeth, second daughter of John of Gaunt and Blanche. 
See Development and Chronology of Chaucer ^s WorTcs, p. 154. 


36 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


quasi-historical events just discussed, many of Chaucer’s 
chance references to real or legendary persons and places 
have been attributed to his reading of the Roman de la 
Bose. As these are scattered throughout the poems and 
have no connection with one another, their consideration 
must be more or less haphazard. Our concern is simply 
to find out whether Chaucer in these cases was entirely 
dependent on the French poem, or could have obtained his 
information elsewhere. Most of the allusions of this class 
can be disposed of summarily; hence I have grouped to- 
gether, first, those that it seems likely Chaucer adapted 
from the French poem, and, second, those of which the 
source is open to question. 

I. Allusions Reasonably Supposed to Have Been Derived 

from the Roman de la Rose 

(a) Alcipyades, B. Duch. 1057. Chaucer’s spelling of 
the name (cf. RR. 9692-95) and the fact that at the time 
of writing the Book of the Duchess he does not appear to 
have known Boethius, except through Jean de Meung, 
constitute the evidence. 

(b) Alocen (Alhazen), F. 232, and Aristotle, F. 233. 
These two philosophers are mentioned within four lines of 
each other in the Roman: 18966, 18969. Alhazen ’s treatise 
on optics is also referred to. Koeppel has noted other close 
parallels between the French poem and F. 228ff, making 

22 Jean mentions Boece (9698) in connection with this passage 
about Alcibiades. See Skeat ^s note, I, 489. All the MSS. of B. Duch. 
read Alcipyades, the form in the most authoritative MSS. of the Boman. 
Langlois accepts this spelling. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


37 


it reasonable to suppose that the English lines are at least 
reminiscent of the French. With the English passage com- 
pare particularly RR. 18969-71, 18979-81, 19111, 19122, 
19182-87. 

(c) Argus (Algus), B. Duch. 435-440. Skeat’s note 
(I, 475) is convincing. The passage imitated is RR. 13731- 
37.23 

(d) Absolon (Absolom) Leg. G. W. 249. Koeppel 
called attention to RR. 14817, of which Chaucer’s line is 
almost a literal translation. At the same time it must be 
remembered that Absalom’s beauty was proverbial.^'^ This 
fact accounts, doubtless, for the name of the handsome 
parish clerk in the Milleres Tale: — 

Now was ther of that chirche a parish-clerk. 

That whiche that was y-cleped Absolon, 

Crul was his heer, and as the gold it shoon. 

(A. 3312-14) 

(e) Helowys (Heloise) W. B.’s Prol. (D.) 677-8. 
Skeat writes, ^ ‘ I have no doubt at all that Chaucer derived 
his knowledge of her from the short sketch of her life 
given in the Roman de la Bose^’ (7510-73). Inasmuch as 
the Wife of Bath devotes only two lines to this abbess, the 
English critic is probably right.^^ 

23 Langlois evidently did not understand these lines, which he says 
are from Ovid, Ars Amatoria, III, 618: ^^Quot fuerant Argo lumina, 
verba dabis. ’’ 

24 The color of his hair is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, 
but the abundance is. See 2 Sam., 14:25-26. 

25 Langlois may pertinently be quoted here. ^ ^ On sait que Jean 
de Meung a traduit la correspondence d’Abailart et d ’Heloise; cette 
traduction est conservee dans un manuscrit assez fautif, de la 
premiere moitie du quatorzitoe siecle. II est difficile de dire si elle 


38 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(f) Penelope, B. Duch. 1081. Lines 1080-85, with the 
rhymes Grece: Lucrece, and the reference to Titus Livius, 
seem to make it practically certain that Chaucer was fol- 
lowing Jean de Meung, but not, as Skeat points out, lines 
9404-05 ; rather lines 9358-61, 9365 : — 

Penelope neis prendroit (9358) 

Qui bien a li prendre entendroit ; 

Si n’ot meillor fame en Grece. 

Si feroit-il, par foi, Lucrece. 

• ••••• 

N’onc, ce dit Titus Livius, etc. (9365) 

(g) Saint Leonard, HF. 117-118. The line ‘^To make 
lythe of that was hard’’ seems to connect this allusion to 
the saint with RR. 9582-87. 

(h) Scipio, HF. 916-918. Chaucer had surely by this 
time read for himself Macrobius’s commentary on the 
Dream; but the compact account of Scipio in this poem 
strongly suggests that the poet was thinking of some lines 
near the end of the Roman de la Rose: 

Si cum fist Scipion jadis, 

Qui vit enfer et paradis, 

Et ciel et air, et mer, et terre, (19302-4) 

— a resemblance hitherto overlooked. 

(i) Socrates, B. Duch 717-719. Socrates was a classic 
example of patience, and medieval writers were fond of 

est ant^rieure au Roman de la Rose; du moins, il est certain que notre 
auteur connaissait deja ces lettres lorsquTl ^crivait son poeme^^ 
(p. 147). It is interesting to note that the account of these two 
lovers in the Eoman de la Bose is older by thirty years than any 
existing manuscript of the original letters. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


39 


using his experiences as illustrative material. It is inter- 
esting to compare how Gower’s Lover, Jean de Meung’s 
Lover, and the Knight in the Book of the Duchess regard 
the old philosopher ’s stoicism. In the Book of the Duchess 
we read — 


Remembre yow of Socrates; 

For he ne counted nat three strees 
Of noght that Fortune coude do. 

‘^No,” quod he, ^‘I can not so.” (717-720) 

Jean’s Lover says with much spirit — 

Ge ne priseroie trois chiches 
Socrate, combien qu’il fust riches, 

Ne plus n’en quier oir parler. (7652-54) 

For Gower, see Confessio Amantis, III, 639-714 and fol- 
lowing. Troilus is another lover who behaves very much 
as the hero of the Roman, though he is somewhat more 
dignified in his remonstrance with Pandarus and his tire- 
some saws : 

Freend, though that I stille lye, 

I am not deef ; now pees, and cry no more ; 

For I have herd thy wordes and thy lore ; 

But suffre me my mischief to biwayle. 

For thy proverbes may me nought avayle. 

(T. i, 752-6) 

But the situation was conventional enough among poets in 
Chaucer’s day. The lines Chaucer was directly imitating 
in B. Duch. 717-719 were RR. 6581-86.^® He appears to 

26 See Skeat ’s note, I, 481, where the French text is quoted. Lang- 
lois thinks that Jean took these verses from Solinus: Inter alia 

Socratis magna praeclarum est, quod in eodem vultus tenore etiam 
adversis interpellantibus perstitit . Sources et origines, etc., p. 132. 


40 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


have had them in mind also when writing a part of his 
poem on Fortune : — 

0 Socrates, thou stedfast champioun, 

She never mighte be thy tormentour; 

Thou never dreddest her oppressioun, 

Ne in hir chere founde thou no savour. (17-20) 

(j) Zanzis (Zeuxis), C. 16-18. Skeat (V. 261) shows 
conclusively that Chaucer derived his knowledge of Zeuxis 
from the Roman, 17113ff. Jean de Meung is there speak- 
ing of Nature and of the inability of artists to vie with her, 
which is precisely Chaucer’s argument here.” 

II. Allusions not Necessarily Inspired by the Roman de 

la Rose 

Koeppel has drawn attention to the fact that many of 
the stock examples registered in the Booh of the Duchess 
are used in a similar way in the Roman de la Rose, The 
correspondences he has noticed are these: 

Helen and Lavyne,^^^ (B. Duch. 331) (RR. 21818-19) 
Daedalus, (B. Duch. 570) (22365) 

Echo and Narcissus, (B. Duch. 735) (6574) 

Dalida and Samson, (B. Duch. 738; D. 721-23) (9953-56) 

26a The lines from the Boman are 

^ ^ N ’onques Helaine ne Lavine 
Ne furent de color si fine. ’ ’ 

The identical rhymes, Lavyne: fyne and Lavine: 'fine, besides the 
presence of the name Helen, seem to add weight to KoeppeUs parallel. 
But there is nothing particularly striking about either passage; and 
the resemblance, it seems to me, may be nothing more than a coinci- 
dence. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


41 


Skeat contributes the following: 

Dido and -^neas, (B. Duch. 732-33 ; HF. 239ff) (14115ff) 


Hercules, (B. Duch. 1058) (9933, 9941) 

Dejanira and Hercules, (D. 724-26) (9945-56) 

The poisoned shirt, (HF. 1413-14) (9948) 

Genelon, (B. Duch. 1121) (8617) 

Hipocras and Galien, (B. Duch. 572, A. 431) (16895-96) 

Razis, Constantine, Avicene (A. 431-2) (RR. 16897) 
St. Julyan, (HF. 1022) (9583) 

Gawain the courteous, (F. 95) (2103-4) 

Also the Romaunt of the Rose (2205-12), for which 
there is no French original. 

Euclid and Ptolemy, (D. 2289) (17107) 


Compare Skeat ’s notes to all these references in Chaucer. 
Thus much should be said in support of Jean de Meung’s 
influence on the Book of the Duchess: while no one refer- 
ence cited above can be proved to have come from the 
Roman, the cumulative evidence is fairly strong; fifteen 
straws are harder to break in a bundle than separately. 
And yet it should not be forgotten that Ovid and Vergil 
and Hyginus are full of classic examples, and that the 
influence of Guillaume de Machault upon the Duchess was 
even greater than that of Jean de Meung.^^ In the later 
poems, written when Chaucer’s acquaintance with litera- 
ture was larger (though I suspect that as a boy and a 

27 Professor Kittredge has pointed out many significant parallels 
between this poem and Le Jugement dou Boy de Behaigne in Mod- 
ern Philology, April, 1910. See also Lounsbury, I, 423, II, 212-15, 
III, 409; Ten Brink, Studien, 8ff. ; Sandras, Etude, etc., 75fP. (288- 
294); Skeat, I, 63, 462, 464. But Machault ’s indebtedness to the 
Eoman de la Bose must not be disregarded. 


42 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN BE LA ROSE 


young man he had read far more than his critics seem to 
admit), it is more difficult to feel confident about sources. 
Gawain’s courtesy, Ganelon’s treachery, and St. Julian’s 
hospitality were not infrequently alluded to. Indeed, no 
formal sources are needed for them. 

Medea, Five early allusions to Medea are due to the 
Roman de la Rose, says Hoot.^® These are B. Duch. 724- 
731; HF. 397-404, 1271-74; A. 1944-46; B. 72-74. Three 
of the five may be dismissed without much discussion. The 
reference in the Book of the Duchess is only one of a 
number of allusions to stock examples, which, as Skeat has 
observed, are all to be found in the Roman, But they 
also occur in Ovid and in Machault, poets whom Chaucer 
used freely while writing the Book of the Duchess, That 
the English poet had the French poem in mind when 
writing HF. 401 is simply a matter of opinion. As Skeat 
says, probably all the examples mentioned in 11. 388-407 
were taken from Ovid’s Epistles, a work that Chaucer 
refers to by name in line 379. It does not seem unreason- 
able to consider this enumeration of hapless women as an 
immediate anticipation or reminiscence of the Legend of 
Good Women, The coupling of the names of Medea and 
Circe as enchantresses in the Knight es Tale, A. 1944, does 
not appear to me conclusive evidence that Chaucer had in 
mind RR. 15350-54. Ovid links these two personages to- 
gether in Ars Amatoria, II, 101-104. 

The other two allusions seem to be connected more defi- 
nitely with the Roman de la Rose, 

28 Chaucer Legend of Medea, by Robert K. Root. Publ. Mod. 
Lang. Assoc., Vol. XXIV, p. 134. 


CHAUCEB AND THE EOMAN DE LA KOSE 


43 


Ther saugh I thee, queen Medea, 

And Circes eke, and Calipsa ; 

Ther saugh I Hermes Ballenus, 

Lymote, and eek Simon Magus. (HF. 1271-74) 


has been compared by Skeat with 


Que ja riens d ’enchantement croie, 
Ne sorcerie, ne charroie, 

Ne BalenuSf ne sa science, 

Ne magique, ne nigromance 
Onques ne pot tenir Medee 
Jason por nul enchantement ; 

N’onc Circe ne tint ensement 
mixes qu’il ne s’en foist. 


(15342) 


(15345) 

(15349) 


(15352) 


But I feel by no means certain that the four English lines 
are any more due to the Roman than to Ovid; for Ovid 
mentions Medea, Circe, and Calypso in close proximity in 
Book II of the Ars Amatoria. The ^‘sorcerer-sorceress 
list’’ may have been eked out from the Roman, which, like 
the Ars Amatoria, mentions only three of the names Chau- 
cer mentions. For Chaucer’s Hermes, Lymote, and Simon 
Magus there is no original either in Ovid or Jean de 
Meung. Moreover, it is not proved that Jean’s Balenus, 
Chaucer’s Ballenus, and Skeat ’s Belinous are the same per- 
son. Lantin de Damerey thinks it very probable that 
Balenus is meant for Helenus, son of Priam and Hecuba, 
who is mentioned at length in the third book of the ^neid. 
Helenus was a seer and priest of no mean ability; and 
proper names are often distorted in medieval manu- 
scripts.^®®^ Jean does not mention Hermes. If one insists 

28a Lantin de Damerey is quoted by Marteau in the notes to his 
edition of the Boman. 


44 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


on deriving Chancer ’s reference from Jean de Menng’s 
line, the English lines would better read, 

Ther saugh I Hermes, Ballenus, 

Lymote, and eek Simon Magus; 

not leaving Hermes Ballenus a compound name, as Skeat 
makes it. 

In the Introduction to the Man of Law’s Prologue we 
find a catalogue of heroines similar to that in the Hous of 
Fame. The allusion to Medea — 

The crueltee of thee, queen Medea, 

Thy litel children hanging by the hals 

For thy Jason, that was of love so fals ! (B. 72-74) 

especially the phrase ‘^hanging by the hals,” in which 
Chaucer ^‘has cut loose from tradition,” is directly con- 
nected by Root with the following passage from the Roman: 

Dont ses enfans, quant el le sot, 

Por ce que de Jason les ot, 

Estrangla de duel et de rage, 

Dont el ne fist mie que sage, 

Quant el lessa pitie de mere, 

Et fist pis que marastre amere. (14198-14203) 

Root says: ^Ht would be interesting to know whence Jean 
de Meung’s estrangla is derived. This I have not been 
able to determine.” 

The similarity of ‘^estrangla” and ‘‘hanging by the 
hals” is the strongest piece of evidence advanced for de- 
riving the one passage from the other. But the evidence 
is not conclusive; for estrangla ordinarily does not mean 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


45 


Jiayiging hy the hals^ and Chaucer is very fond of this pair 
of rhymes, hals: fals. No less than five other instances oc- 
cur.^^ I should say that at most the Man of Lawe’s allusion 
to Medea is but a vague reminiscence of the Roman, After 
all, why should one take the Man of Lawe’s enumeration 
of the table of contents of the ^ ‘ Seintes Legende of 
Cupyde’^ so seriously? Chaucer continually laughs at the 
pilgrims, and makes fun of himself and his own work. 
The accuracy of the information the Man of Lawe vouch- 
safes is such as we should expect from him of whom Chau- 
cer had already written, ^^And yet he semed bisier than 
he was.’’ The Man of Lawe is advertising a book that he 
has evidently not read. 

Phyllis. The brief account of Phyllis and Demophon in 
the Hous of Fame, 388-396, has been traced by Root to the 
Roman, on the strength of 1. 392 : — 

And falsly gan his terme pace, 

which is nearly a literal translation of the French 

Por le terme qu’il trespassa, (14154) 

But by the time Chaucer wrote the Hous of Fame he must 
have read Ovid’s Epistles^ for he speaks of Demophon as 
‘‘duk of Athenis” (1. 388) and of Phyllis as ^^the kinges 
daughter ... of Trace” — details that Jean de Meung 
does not mention. Line 392 might very easily have been 
taken from Ovid’s 

te • • • 

29I.€., PE. 456-458; HE. 343-4; L. (a) 292-3; E. 2379-80; G. 
1028-29. 


46 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Ultra promissum tempus abesse queror, {Epist. II, 1-2) 
which Chaucer translated thus in his legend of Phyllis : 

Thy Phillis . . . upon yow moot compleyne, 

Over the terme set betwix us tweyne, 

That ye ne holden forward, as ye seyde. (L. 2497-2500) 

Skeat first pointed out the close resemblance between HF. 
392 and RR. 14154.2" 

Finally, a word or two should be said about a stanza in 
Troilus (IV, 222), where Criseyde apostrophizes the river 
Simois. Miss Cipriani thinks that the expression 

That thou retorne bakwarde to thy welle, (iv, 1553) 

is copied from the Roman de la Rose : — 

Que Xantus s^en retorneroit 

Si tost cum il la lesseroit. (14166-67) 

The ultimate source of this idea of the lover’s being faith- 
ful until a river fiows back to its fountain-head is Ovid.^^ 
But Criseyde addresses the Simois, not the Xanthus. Jean 
de Meung does not mention the Simois. Ovid, however, 
writes of this river many times, and, once at least, in con- 
nection with the Xanthus {Heroides, xiii, 53). I believe 
that the first two lines of the stanza in question — 

And thou, Simoys, that as an arwe clere 
Thorugh Troye rennest ay downward to the see, 

(1548-49) 

Chaucer, III, 252. 

31 Heroides, v. 29-30 : 

Cum Paris Oenone poterit spirare relicta, 

Ad fontem Xanthi versa recurret aqua. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


47 


were written by the poet with his eye on Ovid, — 

Dum rapidas Simois in mare velvet aquas, 

(Amores I, xv, 10) 

and that Chaucer deliberately applied the legend of the 
Xanthus (which there is no more reason to think he got 
from Jean de Meung than from Ovid) to the Simois, to 
make Criseyde’s oath all the stronger. 


CHAPTER III 


Mythological Allusions 

Mythology in Chaucer’s writings has not been made the 
subject of special investigation, I believe, though Miss 
Hammond has called attention to the need of such a study, 
and Sbeat has thrown out a few hints. In this chapter 
no attempt will be made to cover the whole field; only 
those references to gods and goddesses that were probably 
suggested by the Roman de la Rose will be considered. 

As everyone who has read the French poem knows, it 
abounds in allusions to Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the 
Furies, Apollo, etc., etc. The god of Love is a most neces- 
sary personage at all times ; without him, the Lover would 
never have been shot with the arrows of desire and long- 
ing; without the aid of his mother, ‘‘sainte Venus,” the 
Rose could never have been won. Side by side with pagan 
mythology goes the poet’s Christianity. The Lover swears 
by the Catholic saints and prays to Cupid. Altogether, 
the Roman de la Rose is an amazing jumble of heathen 
divinities, allegorical vices and virtues, realistic duennas 
and hypocrites — so confusing that one well-nigh loses his 
way in the bewildering labyrinth. Everything, in fact, is 
there. Moreover, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung 
present all their learning and imagination in the garb of 
the Middle Ages. For instance, Cupid is a liege lord, and 


48 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN BE LA ROSE 


49 


all lovers owe him fealty; Virginius is a ^^bons chevaliers,” 
Venus dresses like a fine lady of the thirteenth century, 
and so on. This leveling, medievalizing, anachronizing — 
whatever one may choose to call it — is illustrated particu- 
larly well in the case of Venus and Cupid, or the god of 
Love, as he is usually called. Although it is impossible 
here to make any detailed study of the attitude of the 
Middle Ages toward love, or of its treatment in literature,^ 
the examination of the points of mythological contact be- 
tween Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose will set forth 
some of the most distinguishing latter-day traits of the 
winged blind god and his mother. We shall reserve the 
end of the chapter for these notables, and consider first 
the deities who have less important roles to play. 

JEolus. The only mention of this god in Chaucer is in 
the Hous of Fame, where his name occurs no less than 
eleven times. He is the god of winds and is called the 
^‘king of Thrace” (1789). With line 1571 Skeat suggests 
a comparison of RR. 18941, — ^^Car Eolus le diex des vans,” 
— of which it is almost an exact translation. But the 
expression is commonplace enough;^ ask almost anyone 
who ^olus was, and the answer will be, ^‘The god of the 
winds.” Moreover, Jean de Meung says nothing of Triton 

1 Eor a general introduction to the subject, the reader may be 
referred to Langlois; Origines et sources, Part I; Neilson: Origins 
and Sources of the Court of Love; Mott; System of Courtly Love; 
and Myrrha Borodine: La femme dans Vceuvre de ChrStien de Troyes. 

2 Cf . Strabo I, 2; VI, 2, and Mneid, I, 52; VIII, 417, where the 
home of the wind-god is placed in the Liparean Islands. See also 
Ovid, Heroides, X, 66; XI, 65, 74, 95. Gower speaks of -aEolus as 
*^the god of wynd,^’ Conf. Aman., V, 977-79. See also Skeat note 
to line 1571 (^Chaucer, III, 280). 


50 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


or Thrace in connection with -^olus, and there is no further 
resemblance between the two passages. 

Furies, Chaucer speaks of these three goddesses both 
as Furies and as the Herines. In his Proemium to Book 
IV of Troilus, the poet summons the ‘^Herines, Nightes 
doughtren three’’ (line 22) to be his muses. Miss Cipriani 
thinks that Chaucer’s reference to Night as the mother of 
the Erinys is due to RR. 17872-73. This investigator also 
adds that Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera are mentioned 
in RR. 20767-69. But Chaucer did not need to take these 
names or this genealogy from the French poem. In the 
first place, a gloss in the MS. to T. iv, 22-24, implies that 
the name Herines was taken from Lucan.^ Although 
ancient authorities do not agree on the parentage of the 
Erinys, the majority make them the children of Night.^ 
It is clearly unnecessary to settle upon the Roman de la 
Rose as the source of these details in Chaucer. Elsewhere 
in Troilus (i, 6; ii, 436) is reference made to these god- 
desses. In the later passage Pandarus calls on them thus : 

‘ ‘ 0 Furies three of helle, on yow I crye ! ’ ’ 

As hell was the regular abiding place of the Furies, there 
is no object in hunting for a source for this line. But the 

3 Chaucer, II, Ixxiii. 

4 According to Empedocles they are the children of Kronos. Hesiod 
(Theog,, 182-185) refers to the Erinys as the daughters of Earth, and 
sprung from the blood of the mutilated Uranus. For the Furies as 
daughters of Night, see .^schylus, Eumenides, 317, 413; Sophocles, 
(Ed. Col., 40, 106; Ovid, Metam., iv, 451. Compare also Vergil, 
jEneid, vi, 250; vii, 320; xii, 845; Ovid, Heroides, xi, 103. The 
Orphic Hymns assign the Furies the rulers of Erebos for parents. 
See Keightley, p. 196. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


51 


reader might compare RR. 20771: ‘‘Ces trois en enfer 
vous atendent/^ and especially Dante Inferno, IX, 38; 
‘‘tre furie infernal di sangue tinted ^ This reference in 
Dante, which Skeat does not call attention to, leads me to 
say a word about Chaucer’s address to Pity; 

^ ‘ Have mercy on me, thou Herenus queen ! ” ^ 

Skeat asserts that Herenus is merely an error for Her- 
ines, and that ‘‘Pity may be said to be the queen of the 
Furies in the sense that pity (or mercy) can alone control 
the vindictiveness of vengeance.” In giving the Erinys a 
queen who was pitiful, Chaucer may have had in mind 
Proserpina, who, when she was goddess of spring, was 
benevolent to man, but when the goddess of death, directed 
the Furies and was “cruel, unyielding, inimical to youth 
and life and hope.” ® Compare also Inferno, IX, 43-45; 

E quei, che ben conobbe le meschine 
Della regina dell’ eterno pianto, 

“Guarda,” mi disse, “le feroci Erine.” 

In the next three lines of the Inferno appear the names 
Megera, Tesifone, and Aletto. Chaucer’s Alete (T. iv, 24) 
is probably due to the Italian form ; it is hardly from the 
French Alecto, Moreover, Dante uses the word Erine; the 
Roman has les trois forceneries. 

The reference in the Legend of Philomela to “The furies 
three, with alle hir mortel brond,” line 25, is borrowed, of 
course, from Ovid’s story of Progne and Philomela, Metam., 

5 The Compleynte unto Pite, 92. 

6 See Cayley’s Classic Myths, p. 53 (Boston, 1911). 


52 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


VI, 430. Exactly the same thought is to be found also in 
the Heroides, VI, 45-46. 

The Fates. There are but two references to the Fates, 
both in Troilus. 

And Attropos my threed of lyf to-brest, (iv. 1546) 

might be compared with HR. 20702-3 : 

Mes Atropos vont et descire > 

Quanque ces deus pueent filer. 

And this line : 

Til Lachesis his threed no longer twyne, (v. 7) 
suggests HR. 20701 : 

Et Lachesis qui les filz tire. 

Chaucer does not mention Clotho. To the passages just 
quoted from the Roman, I do not imply any obligation on 
Chaucer’s part; for doubtless the various offices of the 
three Destinies were as carefully differentiated and as 
well known in the fourteenth century as they are to-day."^ 
Besides, see Skeat’s note, Vol. II, p. 495. 

Hymenaeus, the god of marriage, appears twice in Chau- 
cer. The reference to him in the Legend of Philomela 
(L. 2250) is probably from Metamorphoses, VI, 429. Here, 
as in the Legend, he is mentioned along with Juno. The 
same coupling of these two deities as regular attendants 
upon weddings occurs in the Roman de la Rose: 

7 Cf . the refrain stanzas in Lowell ’s Villa Franca : ‘ ^ Spin, spin, 
Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! — Quoted by 
Gayley, p. 481. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


53 


Ymeneus et Juno m’oie; 

Qu^il voillent a nos noces estre. (22004-5) 

The only noteworthy fact about this quotation is the spell- 
ing of the name of the god — a spelling that Chaucer follows 
also in the Marchantes Tale (E. 1730). 

Lucina in Chaucer is usually identified with Diana or 
the moon ; e. g., T. iv. 1591 ; v. 655 ; P. 1045. In the 
KnigJites Tale, in a passage not derived from the Teseide, 
she is invoked as the goddess of childbirth : 

A womman travailinge was hir biforn, 

But, for hir child so longe was unborn, 

Pul pitously Lucyna gan she calle. 

And seyde, ^‘help, for thou mayst best of alle.’’ 

(A. 2083-86) 

With this may be cited the following from the Roman: 

Pri-ge Lucina la deesse 
D ’enf antement, qu’el doint qufil nesse 
Sans mal et sans encombrement. 

Si quTl puist vivre longement. (11388-91) 

But beyond the fact that Lucina is supplicated to the end 
that birth may be made easy, there is no significant resem- 
blance between the two quotations. Lucina, of course, 
was a Eoman epithet, which was given sometimes to Juno, 
sometimes to Diana. References in Ovid to her are not 
infrequent.® 

Flora and Zepliirus are' mentioned together in B. Duch. 
402-3 and Prol. B to the Legend, 171-174, as the deities 

^Heroides, VI, 122,, XI, 55; Ars Amatoria, III, 785. See Skeat’s 
note, V, 84. 


54 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


of the flowers. Skeat justly calls these two passages remi- 
niscences of the Roman de la Bose: 

Zephirus et Flora, sa fame, 

Qui des flors est deesse et dame. 

Oil dui font les floretes naistre, 

Flors ne congnoissent autre mestre. (9160-63) 

and compares also RR. 6674-77. Zephyrus, the ‘‘sweet- 
breathed^’ west wind, is spoken of elsewhere in Chaucer; in 
Boethius (though without this epithet) ; and many times 
in Ovid, where it is called “leni Zephyro.” ^ In the Fasti^^ 
Ovid tells the story of Flora and Zephyrus, and writes that 
Flora was an ancient Italian deity, and was loved by the 
west wind. 

Echo and Narcissus. Chaucer does not independently 
tell the story of Narcissus, but in two places he alludes to 
Echo and her death. The poet, in the Book of the Duchess, 
seems to express contempt for those who kill themselves or 
die because of unrequited love. 

And Ecquo dyed for Narcisus 
Nolde nat love hir ; and right thus 
Hath many another foly don. (735-37) 

Here the spelling Ecquo is very much like the French 
Equo. Koeppel thinks that Chaucer took this reference 
from RR. 1447ff, and Skeat agrees. In the Frankeleyns 
Tale Aurelius compares himself to Echo : 

And dye he moste, he seyde, as dide Ekko 

For Narcisus, that dorste nat telle hir wo. 

» Amoves, I, vii, 55; Heroides, XIV, 39. 

10 Book V, 183ff. 


(F. 951-2) 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA KOSE 


55 


In a note to line 951 Skeat says, Chaucer probably took 
this from Le Roman de la Rose, 1447. But he had learned 
by this time that the true original was Ovid {Metamorph,, 
hi, 407). Hence the side-note in MS. E — ^Methamorpo- 
sios’.’’ But the MS. knew better than the learned pro- 
fessor. This reference must have been put down with 
Ovid’s story in mind, not Guillaume de Lorris’s. For 
Chaucer says ‘‘that dorste nat telle hir wo.” In the French 
narrative, it is Echo who prays the gods that Narcissus 
may feel the torture of loving and not being loved: she 
“tells hir wo.” In the Latin account. Echo, after being 
repulsed by the arrogant boy, hides herself in the woods 
and shrivels up until nothing is left but her voice. It is 
some unnamed damsel that prays for vengeance. 

Jupiter, I have detected only one sure case in which 
Chaucer follows the Roman de la Rose in the characteriza- 
tion of this deity. At the close of the poem on the Former 
Age occur the lines : 

Yit was not Jupiter the likerous. 

That first was fader of delicacye. 

Come in this world; (57-59) 

In his note to these lines, Skeat seems to be again on the 
wrong track. He says: “Jupiter is mentioned in Ovid’s 
Metamorphoses immediately after the description of the 
golden, silver, brazen, and iron ages.” But the Jupiter 
described by Ovid is the righteously indignant ruler of the 
world : 

Ingentes animo et dignas love concipit iras, 
Conciliumque vocat. {Metam,, I, 166-67) 


56 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSfi 


In the Roman de la Bose it is the pleasure-loving Jupiter 
who destroys the golden age. Surely Chaucer had in mind 
these lines when he wrote ^‘Jupiter the likerous” : 

Jupiter, qui la monde regie 
Commande et establit pour regie, 

Que chascuns pense d’estre aaise; 

Et shl set chose qui li plaise, 

Quhl la face shl la puet faire, 

Por solas a son cuer atraire. (RR. 21027-32) 

And Jean de Meung goes on to say (lines 21042-46) that 
Dan Jupiter practiced what he preached. 

Venus. Throughout his poetry Chaucer has occasion 
constantly to refer to Venus, but he appears to know little 
about her genealogy. Or rather, he has read much about 
her parentage, — so many different reports that he is con- 
fused. His doubt and inconsistency are brought out in the 
Knight es Tale, where, in line (A.) 2222, the goddess of 
Love is called ‘^doughter to Jove,’’ and later she is daugh- 
ter to Saturn ; 

‘‘My dere doughter Venus,” quod Saturne. (A. 2452) 
This last detail Chaucer very likely took from the Roman 
de la Rose. In lines 6270-75 of the French poem. Reason 
speaks of Jupiter’s mutilation of Saturn, and says that 
from the member, which was thrown into the sea, “Venus 
la deesse issi.” (1. 6276.) Several thousand lines far- 
ther on, we find this more definite statement (Cupid is 
speaking) : 

Mes, par sainte Venus ma mere, 

Et par Saturnus son vieil pere. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


57 


Qui ja Tengendra jone touse, 

Mes non pas de sa fame espouse. (11592-95) 

Keason asserts that the story is true, ^^Car li livres le dit 
ainsi” (6277). Langlois has shown that Jean de Meung 
got his information from the Myfkographes}'^ 

Among the epithets most frequently applied to Venus 
are Cyprian and Cytherean. She is twice called Cipris in 
Chaucer (HF. 518; T. iii, 725) and twice Cipryde (PF. 
277 ; T. V, 208). Miss Cipriani has referred the HF. allu- 
sion to RR. 22234, ‘^Bien avisa dame Cypris,’’ which in 
turn was taken from Li Tornoiemenz Antecrit of Huon de 
Meri.^^ But if Chaucer had not known that Cypris {Cipris 
is the form used in all the MSS. of Chaucer) meant Venus, 
the line in the Roman de la Rose would not have conveyed 
the idea. ■ 

Koeppel first discovered that Chaucer’s mention of Cith- 
aeron as the dwelling place of Venus (A. 1936-37) was 
derived from a description of that mountain in the Roman 

11 See Origines et sources, etc., p. 134. 

This account, tho Langlois has not noticed the fact, seems to have 
resulted from a confusion or contamination of two older stories. In 
Hesiod {Theog,, 188ff.) Venus is said to have sprung from the foam 
that gathered around the mutilated member of Uranus. According 
to Empedocles, Aphrodite was daughter of Kronos (Saturn), and 
Keightley comments thus: There does not appear the slightest 

allusion to this strange genealogy anywhere else. — Mythology, p. 
69 n. Hyginus tells an entirely different story in Tabula cxcvii. 

12 Cf. Langlois, pp. 151-153. The form Cipryde (PF. 277) Chaucer 
found in Alanus de Insulis. See Chaucer, I, 514. In his story of 
Pygmalion, Ovid says, Testa dies Veneris tota celeberrima Cypro 
venerat. ’’ — Metam,, X, 270-271. 


58 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(16596-604).^^ The English poet also gives the goddess the 
name Citherea, an appellation very common in Ovid.^^ 

In the Roman de la Rose, Venus is the mother of Love 
(4032), the mortal enemy of Chastity (4030-31) ; she urges 
youths day and night to pluck roses’’ (2862-64). She is 
described as clad in wondrous robes and carrying a flaming 
torch in her right hand (4040ff., 4034-36).^^^ However 
pleasure-loving she is, she is not mercenary (11559ff.). 
In the Knight es Tale, after the reference to Venus’s dwell- 
ing at Cithaeron, the author goes on to describe -the statue 
of the goddess in her temple. The picture is conventional 
enough; perhaps it is not necessary to go farther than 
Skeat’s note (V, 78). Idleness, for instance, like Venus, 
wears a garland of fresh roses and bears in her hand a 
mirror. When Chaucer speaks of so many folk caught in 
Venus’s net — 

Lo, alle thise folk so caught were in hir las. 

Til they for wo ful ofte seyde ‘^alias’’! (A. 1951-52) 

he may have had in mind a couplet from the Roman — 

13 Langlois has been unable to trace the source of this passage, 
but conjectures that it was some ^‘poete ancien. ’’ p. 171. 

11 See particularly the Ars Amatoria, II, 15-16 : 

*^Nunc mihi, siquando, puer et Cytherea, favete, 

Nunc Erato! nam tu nomen amoris habes. ’’ 

1 la Jean de Meung speaks of her bow and torch: 

Ge ne doi prisier ung landon 

Moi, ne mon arc, ne mon brandon. (16712-13) 

Skeat refers to these lines in connection with PF. 114 and E. 1777. 
(I, 509.) 


CHAUCEK AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


59 


Si pueent en lor laz cheoir, 

Qu^il lor en devra mescheoir. (11664-65) 

which had been translated in the English Romaunt thus : 

If that they falle into hir laas, 

That they for wo mowe seyn Allas !’’ (6029-30) 

though here not Venus’s net is meant, but the snares that 
women lay for rich lovers. In the French poem, it is 
Cupid who entangles lovers Venus’s net is of a differ- 
ent sort. With Chaucer, as with Jean de Meung, Venus is 
the mother of Cupid, who calls her Saint Venus” she 
carries a torch she is the enemy of chastity Palamoii 
prays to her and promises never to be chaste if he win his 
love — just as Pygmalion prays.^® Chaucer also probably 
took the Wife of Bath’s phrase, chambre of Venus (D. 618), 
from RR. 14277. 

Venus, in both poets, is the goddess of voluptuous love, 
just as Jupiter is the ^‘likerous.” This conception, how- 
ever, was not peculiar to Jean de Meung and Chaucer; 
it is Ovidian also. She is much more sensual than Cupid, 
her son. He has courtliness, at least, and insists on being 

14b Ge qui estoie pris oil laz 

Ou Amors les amans enlace. EE. 16046-47. 

With these lines Koeppel compares L. 600 and A. 1817, 1951. 

15 T. iii. 1255. Legend 338; cf. EE. 11592-— JT. See also WB. Prol. 
(D. 604) and EE. 22080. 

18 Marchantes Tale, E. 1777. 

17 A. 2235-36. Cf. also D. 611. 

18 A. 2233-37, imitated from EE. 22087-94. Skeat and Koeppel, 

19 Guillaume de Lorris very fittingly makes Idleness the gate-keeper- 
in the garden of delight (EE. 584). Chaucer seems to he following 
him in A. 1940. — Sk. In PF. 261 the porter of Venus is Eichesse. 


60 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


sovereign: he commands respect. The Roman deity Venus 
ever had less dignity and nobility than Aphrodite, her 
Greek counterpart. By the thirteenth century she had 
degenerated into the fitting patron of such a person as 
La Vieille. Jean de Meung tells at length of her escapade 
with Mars (RR. 14785-14815, 15100-15129, 18996-19024), 
and Chaucer refers to the incident (A. 2388-90).^® All in 
all, Chaucer and Jean de Meung appear to have viewed the 
goddess of Love in much the same light, but, except for 
a few details, Chaucer probably did not owe anything 
essential in his conception to the French poet. Chaucer’s 
acquaintance with the classics (i. e., Latin, of course; 
neither appears to have known much, if any, Greek) was 
broader than the French poet’s. At least, Chaucer had a 
finer, more scientific feeling for antiquity. He was both 
classical and medieval in his sympathies, and often- 
times modern. Jean de Meung was through and through 
medieval. 

Cupid. The god of Love is by no means the least inter- 
esting of Chaucer’s characters. If for no other reason, he 
is worth studying because he had appeared before the last 
half of the fourteenth century many times in the literature 
of France, and can therefore be cross-examined and made 
to give an account of himself here. He had ruled the 

20 Ovid tells the story twice. Jean de Meung undoubtedly followed 
the account in Ars Amatoria, II, 561-600. Skeat (V, 87) calls atten- 
tion to the narrative in Metam., IV, 171-189. Both authors emphasize 
the foolishness of Vulcan in exposing the shame of his wife, and the 
laughter and coarse jests of the other gods at the expense of the 
wronged husband. Chaucer’s Compleynt of Mars appears to owe 
nothing to the Eoman de la Eose. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


61 


dreams of many a poet before Chancer; we should expect 
to find him treating our poet in much the same way as he 
treated the others. After we have looked somewhat closely 
at his bearing toward earlier authors, we shall be able to 
compare his conduct toward Chaucer. 

In the Boman de la Bose, the god of Love is a very dis- 
tinct person. He deals to lovers happiness or sorrow, as 
seems best to him; he casts down pride, and makes high- 
minded men humble, and proud ladies meek. He wears, 
not a robe of silk, but a variegated garment of flowers, 
covered with representations of all manner of beasts. He 
is crowned with a garland of sweet-scented roses, and 
around his head fly birds of every sort. Altogether he 
appears to be one of God’s angels. His attendant, Sweet- 
Looks, bears in each hand a Turkish bow, — one black and 
gnarled, the other white and graceful, and richly carved. 
In his right hand he also carries flve golden, brilliantly 
feathered arrows, named Beauty, Simplicity, Franchise, 
Companionship, and Fair-Seeming. In his left hand 
Sweet-Looks holds five other arrows, made of iron ^ ‘ blacker 
than the devil of hell.” These are Pride, Felony, Shame, 
Despair, and New-Thought or Infidelity (RR. 869-988). 

After the god of Love has pierced the dreamer with the 
five beautiful arrows, he claims him as his prisoner: ‘‘Vas- 
sal, pris ies, noient n’i a Du contredire ne du defendre” 
(1884-85), and tells how the homage rendered to him has 
often been false, how his courtesy has been repaid by 
deceit and strife. The dreamer — now become the Lover — 
offers to have his heart locked up by Love as a pledge of 
faithfulness. The god thinks the suggestion a fair one. 


62 CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 

and drawing forth a little gold key, presses it to the 
Lover’s side and adroitly and painlessly seals his heart. 
After swearing eternal loyalty, the Lover claims instruc- 
tion from his master, whereupon the god of Love enumer- 
ates his precepts (2087-2274). He next recounts the toils 
and griefs the Lover will have to suffer (2275-2568). On 
the Lover’s expressing serious doubts as to his ability to 
endure such torments, the god gives him, in addition 
to Hope, three gifts, — Sweet-Thought, Soft-Speech, and 
Sweet-Looks, — who are to help him win his desire. Cupid 
then departs, and does not reappear until verse 11198. 
After learning of the difficulties the Lover has experienced 
for the last eight thousand lines and how in spite of his 
suffering he has turned a deaf ear to Eeason and has 
remained faithful to his lord. Love assembles his barons 
for a council of war. Of these. Dame Idleness bore the 
largest banner (11208-9). After interminable digressions 
into every conceivable subject, from free-will to alchemy, 
the author finally tells how Cupid, aided by his mother, 
Venus, successfully storms the castle that imprisoned the 
Rose. The flower is suddenly changed to a beautiful 
maiden and given to the Lover. 

What is the character of the god of Love in the Pro- 
logue to the Legend of Good Women? As in the Roman, 
he here appears to the poet in a dream; but it is to be 
noted that all the description of the beauty of spring with 
its flowers and birds precedes the vision. The whole of the 
French poem is a dream except the first forty-four lines. 
Chaucer ‘‘mette” how he lay in the meadow to enjoy the 
daisy that he so loves and fears. From afar came walking 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 63 

the god of Love, leading by the hand a queen dressed in 
gold and white, to resemble the flower that the poet had 
been admiring. As for her companion — 


Y-clothed was this mighty god of love (226) 

In silke, enbrouded ful of grene greves, 

In-with a fret of rede rose-leves, (228) 

The fresshest sin the world was first bigonne. 

His gilte heer was corouned with a sonne, (230) 

Instede of gold, for hevinesse and wighte ; 

Therwith me thought his face shoon so brighte (232) 
That wel unnethes mighte I him beholde ; 


And in his hande me thoughte I saugh him holde (234) 
Two fyry dartes, as the gledes rede ; 

And aungellyke his winges saugh I sprede. (236) 

And al be that men seyn that blind is he, 

Al-gate me thoughte that he mighte see ; (238) 

For sternely on me he gan biholde. 

So that his looking doth myn herte colde. (240) 

After this description, the poet introduces his balade in 
praise of the ^Uady fre”: 

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere, etc., (249) 

for had it not been for the comfort of her presence, the 
dreamer 

had been deed, withouten any defence. 

For drede of Loves wordes and his chere. (279-280) 

Love is followed by a countless throng of fair women — 
more numerous than the poet ever thought lived in the 
world — 


And trewe of love thise women were echon. (290) 


64 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(One feels like putting an exclamation point after this 
statement; Chaucer could not resist the opportunity for 
a thrust.) The god of Love seats himself, and the ladies 
group themselves around him. After a long silence (sug- 
gestive of the dulness of his court), the god looks about 
him, sees the poet kneeling by the daisy, and asks abruptly, 
‘‘Who kneleth therT’ The dreamer’s meek “Sir, hit 
am I,” does not seem to turn away wrath, for the tyrant 
says: 

What dostow heer 
So nigh myn owne flour, so boldely ? 

For it were better worthy, trewely, 

A worm to neghen neer my flour than thou. (315-18) 

(The thou that the god of Love always uses when address- 
ing the poet is signiflcant of the social relationship between 
the two; the poet replies with you. The god and Alceste 
use you to each other.) The poet is accused of being the 
foe of Love for having translated the Romance of the Rose 
and having written of Criseyde in such a way as to make 
men lose confldence in women. And, says Love, 

By seynt Venus, that my moder is. 

If that thou live, thou shalt repenten this 

So cruelly, that hit shal wel be sene ! (338-40) 

The lady then speaks up, and says that it is the part of a 
deity to be gracious and merciful ; and that the poet wrote 
nothing in malice — only thoughtlessness ; that king or 
lord 

oghte nat be tiraunt ne cruel 
As is a fermour, to doon the harm he can. 

He moste thinke hit is his lige man. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


65 


And is his tresour and his gold in cofre. (377-380) 

• ••••••• 

For . . . hit is no maystrie for a lord 
To dampne a man withoute answere of word ; 

And for a lord, that is ful foul to use. (400-402) 

The poet is given an opportunity to justify his conduct, hut 
he has no more than finished one short defense when the 
lady interrupts him with 

lat he thyn arguinge ; 

For Love ne wol nat countrepleted he 

In right ne wrong; and lerne that of me ! (475-77) 

She then imposes the penance for the trespass committed, — 
the poet must spend the best part of his remaining years on 
a ‘‘glorious Legende of Gode Wommen.’’ The god of Love 
considers the penalty light, and asks the dreamer if he 
knows who his judge is. But the condemned man replies, 
‘ ‘ No, Sire ; I only see that she is good. ’ ’ The god, becom- 
ing more contemptuous, says : 

That is a trewe tale, by myn hood, 

. . . and that thou knowest wel, pardee. 

If hit he so that thou avyse thee. (507-509) 

If this be a court of love, one feels like saying justice 
is administered in a most eccentric way. Here is a humble 
man who is called to account by an overbearing lord who 
will not be contradicted. A gentle lady pleads for the 
accused, and defends him quite logically. She then imposes 
a heavy sentence on him for his fault ! The irony of the 
whole situation is delicious; there is nothing particular 
attractive in the service of such a tyrant as is here pre- 


66 CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 

sented. Chaucer winks at his reader and says, ^ ‘ I told you 
so ; it was always thus ; keep out of it P ^ At length, after 
a few leading hints have been given him, the poet guesses 
that the lady is Alceste. Whereupon he launches into such 
a eulogy of her that she blushes for shame ‘^a lyte/^ (535) 
The god of Love says to the dreamer, ‘Wou did wrong in 
not mentioning Alceste in your balade of ‘ Hyd, Absolon. ’ ’ ’ 

But now I charge thee, upon thy lyf. 

That in thy Legend thou make of this wyf. 

Whan thou hast other smale y-maad before ; 

And fare now wel, I charge thee no more. (548-551) 

But before he goes, he gives more minute directions about 
the stories to be written. The poet is allowed thus much 
liberty, however: he can make the meters as he pleases.^^^ 

Now, it is obvious that we have got far away from 
mythology. The god of Love no longer resembles Cupid; 
and though he still calls Venus his mother, he is a disagree- 
able despot, Chaucer will not let us forget. Are there 
any points of contact between the god of Love and Guil- 
laume’s and Jean’s Amors? 

Koeppel has called attention to line 338 and RR. 11592 : 

Mes, par sainte Venus ma mere, 

in which the epithet saint as applied to the goddess of Love 
seems to be of some significance. As for Venus being the 
mother of Love, that was a commonplace. In RR. 22080 

20 a Professor Kittredge (in Mod. Phil., April, 1910, pp. 471-474) 
has shown that the general situation of a poet judged and punished 
by a king for having offended ladies occurs in Machault’s Le Juge- 
meiit dou Boy de Navarre. 


CHAUCEK AND THE EOMAN DE LA ROSE 


67 


we find the phrase ^^Sainte Venus/’ and the Wife of Bath 
thus accounts for her amorous nature : 

I hadde the prente of seynt Venus seel. (D. 604) 

M. Bech^^ compared the description of Cupid in L. 226- 
240 with RR. 880-907. But there are essential differences 
between the two. One has only to recall Chaucer’s beauti- 
ful apology (lines 73-82) for treating his theme conven- 
tionally, to realize that so far as the poet can he is going 
to treat it unconventionally. Now, literary infiuence is 
manifested in two ways: imitation or conscious variation. 
Both imply a thorough acquaintance with the model. Don 
Quixote is a case in point. When Chaucer writes 

And I come after, glening here and there. 

And am ful glad if I may finde an ere 
Of any goodly word that ye han left, (75-77) 

he has been interpreted to mean, ‘‘I am going to write a 
poem in praise of the daisy. Many of my contemporaries 
and predecessors have already done this, so I shall have to 
say that they have said. My method will be to select from 
this large body of poetry, lines and sentiments — if there 
are any good ones — and w’ork them up into my piece.” 
This, or substantially this, Chaucer meant by his ‘^glening,” 
it has been said. But an examination of lines 75-77 and the 
three that follow — 

And thogh it happen that me rehercen eft 
That ye han in your fresshe songes sayd, 

For-bereth me, and beth not evel apayd (78-80) — 

21 In ^‘Quelle und Plan der Legende of Good Women, Anglia, V, 
p. 359. 


68 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


make it clear that the poet’s endeavor was to write some- 
thing that had not been written by the others — something 
that ‘^had been left,” i. e., overlooked^^ — although he real- 
izes that he will have to ^^rehercen eft” much of what has 
already been well said in the ‘^fresshe songes” ; that is, the 
first songs of this type. Consequently, we must be on the 
lookout for deliberate departures from preceding conven- 
tions. Here, only those relating to the god of Love will be 
noticed. 

Clearly, Chaucer followed no one author in the descrip- 
tion of Cupid. The English poet’s fundamental conception 
of the god of Love, in this poem at least, as a cross-grained, 
irritable king, would not permit of the monarch’s being 
clothed in flowers ; he must have silk. But the flowers must 
be worked in somewhere, so they are embroidered into the 
garment. In the B-text, no garland is mentioned; but in 
the A-text, the god of Love wears a garland of roses stuck 
full of lilies. In any case there are no birds flying about 
his head. The line, ^^And aungellyke his winges saugh I 
sprede,” which may have been suggested by 

II sembloit que ce fust uns anges 

Qui fust tantost venus du ciau. (RR. 906-907) 

22 The editors of the New English Dictionary appear so to under- 
stand the meaning here: 

Glean. — 1. Intr . — To gather or pick up ears of corn which have been 
left by the reapers. 

c. 1385— Chaucer L. G. W. Prol. 75. 

2. Trans . — To gather or pick up [ears of corn or other produce] 
after the reapers, etc. 

1387-8. — T. Usk Test. Love I, Prol. 112 (Skeat’e Chaucer, VII, p. 
4): ^^Yet also have I leve ... to come after . . . these great 
workmen, and glene my handfuls of the shedynge of their handes. ’ ’ 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 69 

is certainly less of a compliment than the French couplet. 
The Roman de la Bose says nothing of the ‘^fyry dartes,” 
of Love’s blindness, or of his stern countenance, which 
chilled the heart of the dreamer. Altogether I can find 
little or no resemblance between Chaucer ’s description and 
Guillaume de Lorris’s. Nor does the French poet speak of 
Love’s wings or of the train of followers who render 
homage to the deity. Some of these details Chaucer prob- 
ably took from an early poem of Guillaume de Machault — 
Le Dit du Vergier — which students have almost altogether 
overlooked because they have kept their eyes too steadily 
fixed on the ‘^marguerite” poems of Deschamps, Machault, 
and Froissart. As the Dit du Vergier has not been exam- 
ined in this connection before, so far as I know, we may 
consider it briefiy here. 

In Le Dit du Vergier^ the author tells how one beautiful 
spring morning he took a stroll through a woods. The 
nightingale was singing the return of spring; the fiowers 
were gorgeously in bloom; and everything breathed glad- 
ness and love. Machault abandoned himself to pleasant 
dreams, and finally sank into a slumber. Suddenly a 
delightful apparition greeted his eyes. He saw, in a little 
meadow, the most beautiful company of young people he 
had ever seen — six youths and six maidens. On a little tree 
was sitting a marvelous creature : 

Car nulle goute ne veoit 
Et en sa dextre main tenoit 
Un dart qui bien estoit ferre 
De fer tranchant et acere ; 

Et en 1 ’autre avoit un brandon 


70 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


De feu que gettoit grant randon ; 

Et s’avoit pour voler ii eles 
Si belles, qu’onques ne vi telles. 

La face avoit clere et moult belle, 

Et la couleur fresche et vermeille; 

• •••••• 

Mais encore vi je de rechief 
Qui tuit li gentil Damoisel 
Qui estoient plain de revel 
Et les Damoiselles aussi. 

Tons ensamble et chascuns par li, 

Li faisoient feste et honnevir 
Comme a leur souverain signeur, 

Et com leur Dieu Laouroient, 

Graces et loenge li rendoient.^^ 

Et quant j ’eus tout cela veil 
Ymagine et conceii 
J^en os en moy moult grant freour 
Pour le feu, doubtance et paour, 

Qu’ ades vraiement me sambloit 
Que vers moy lancier le voloit. 

Pour ce ne savoie que faire. 

Dealer avant on d^arrier traire.-^ 

But the dreamer makes bold to approach the group, to learn 
about this youth who could not see a ^^goute.’’ Drawing 
near, he salutes them and begins to ask many questions. 

Et quant je li eus ma priere 
Toute dicte en tele maniere, 

Lors parla gracieusement,-^ 

23 Tarbe, p. 15, lines 8-17, 25-33. 

24Hoepffner’s edition of Machault (Soc. des anc. textes fran^.), 
I, pp. 19-20, lines 193-200. Tarbe does not print this passage. 

25 Tarb6, p. 16, lines 29-31. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


71 


i. e., the unknown youth spoke, but does not tell his name 
until more than a hundred lines later: 

Et si te diray de mon non, 

Se tu le vues savoir ou non. 

Je ne te le queir j’ai celer; 

Diex d ’Amours me fait appeller.^® 

Except for some of the allegorical passages, the rest of the 
J)it du Vergier has no particular bearing on the Prologue. 

It will be seen that Machault’s dream opens abruptly 
with an account of the appearance of Love and his com- 
pany. The god carries in his hands an iron barbed dart 
and a fiery brand — Chaucer’s ‘^fyry dartes.” He has two 
wings, is blind, — cannot see at all, — and is surrounded by a 
beautiful company who do him homage. Chaucer refers to 
this tradition about Love, and asserts (L. 237-249, 311) 
that Love can see ; but Machault ’s god gives a long expla- 
nation of why he is blind.- ‘ Machault ’s god of Love is 
accompanied by twelve allegorical personages — six youths 
and six maidens. Chaucer’s god of Love is accompanied by 
thousands of beautiful women who have been true to love. 
Here is a departure from convention, then. On the whole, 
Le Dit du Vergier clearly furnished the English poet with 
not a little of the situation and external description in the 
Prologue, both for imitation and for variation. 

Chaucer’s god of Love, however, after all has been said, 
still remains the poet’s own creation; and although he has 
been identified as Richard II, these claims have been ably 

26 Tarbe, p. 20, lines 8-11. 

27 Ibid., p. 20, lines 20ff. 


72 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


refuted.^^ Alceste’s defense of the dreamer against the 
charges preferred by the deity has some resemblance to 
False-Seeming ’s defense of the Lover against Evil-Tongue’s 
accusations (RR. 13215-13264) — a passage that appears in 
the Bomaunt of the Bose (7608-7666). With L. 410-11 com- 
pare also RR. 11688-9 : 

Si vous prions trestuit, biau sire, 

Que vous li pardonnes vostre ire. 

To sum up : In the god of Love as he is represented in 
the Prologue to the Legend, we have a character who, exter- 
nally described in part by a cento of lines and phrases 
taken from fourteenth-century French poets, in part by 
original features contradicting what previous makers” 
had said, is essentially a new individual in literature. 
Chaucer’s inventiveness here, as usual, has enabled him to 
convert, through the crucible of his genius, somewhat shad- 
owy, allegorical figures into one lifelike person — one not 
very agreeable, to be sure, but nevertheless vivid and 
interesting.^® 

28 See Lowes ’s discussion in Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., XIX, pp. 
668-669 and 674-675. 

29 Some other facts are recorded about Cupid elsewhere in Chaucer. 
In HE. 609, 617, he is called the blind nevew of Jupiter’^; in HE. 
668 he is the ^ ^ reccheles. ’ ' Two conventional descriptions of him as 
blind, winged, provided with bow and arrows, and as the companion 
to his mother, Venus, occur in HE. 137-138 and A. 1963-66. Eollow- 
ing Boccaccio ^s Teseide, Bk. VII, stanza 54, Chaucer gives the god a 
daughter (named Voluttade in the Italian poem) in PE. 211-217. 
Criseyde (T. v. 1590) speaks figuratively of Troilus as ^^Cupydes 
sone.^^ But none of these details has anything to do with the Boman 
de la Bose, 

Eor classical genealogies of Eros (Cupid), see Keightley, p. 146. 


CHAPTER IV 


Chaucer Style as Affected by the Roman 

It is impossible to separate the Roman de la Rose from 
the poems of its day in the matter of style, especially as it 
is the work of two authors so different as Guillaume de 
Lorris and Jean de Meung, who together represent nearly 
every thirteenth-century tendency in poetry. The Roman 
was epoch-making, and appears to have had an extraor- 
dinary effect on Italian as well as French writers. It is 
possible, consequently, that some influence from this poem 
descended to Chaucer indirectly through Boccaccio and 
Dante, and Machault, Froissart and Deschamps. But one 
must not forget the English poet’s acquaintance with 
medieval romances, medieval Latin writers, and, not least 
of all. Middle English literature in general; for it is 
inconceivable that such a varied, idiomatic, correct use of 
our language as the author of the Canterbury Tales dis- 
plays could have resulted merely from following foreign 
models. Therefore, one must proceed cautiously, even 
skeptically, in a search for the sources of Chaucer’s style. 

Koeppel cites a number of parallels which he says are not 
without significance for a knowledge of the influence of the 
Roman de la Rose on Chaucer’s diction, although they can 
be found here and there in other English authors of that 


73 


74 CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 

time( !).^ Koeppel’s illustrations, together with those fur- 
nished by other commentators, we may classify somewhat 
arbitrarily under the following heads: (1) picturesque ^ 

negation, (2) exclamations and imprecations, (3) figures of 
speech — allegory, simile, metaphor, anaphora, (4) rhymes 
and vocabulary, (5) various other devices of expression, 
such as the use of emphatic repetition in interrogative 
form, emphasis by a series of contrasts, the employment of 
extended lists of objects; catalogues, and transitional and 
summarizing sentences. 

(1) PICTURESQUE NEGATION 

By picturesque negation, or ‘ ‘ gemeinschaf tliche aus- 
driicke der geringschatzung, ” as Koeppel calls it, is meant 
the undervaluation of some person, thing, attribute or qual- 
ify? l>y means of a reductio ad ahsurdum comparison with 
a common, well-known object of little or no worth; as, 
‘‘Swich talking is nat worth a boterfiye’^ (B. 3980). This 
form of phraseology is said to have been introduced into 
early Middle English from the French; it is fairly com- 
mon in Latin and Middle High German, but does not 
appear to have been used in Old English.^ Chaucer seems 
to have been fond of such expressions, for they occur no 

1 Anglia, XIV, p. 262ff. The critic seems to imply by this that 
Chaucer deliberately chose the French poem as a model. 

2 See French Elements in Middle English, by Frederick H. Sykes A 
(Oxford, 1899), esp. pp. 24*25, 36, 39. We have no 'proof that pic- 
turesque negation was unknown to the Anglo-Saxons. The mere fact 

that no examples of it occur in A.-S. literature is of no particular 
significance, for A.-S. literature is never colloquial. Picturesque 
negation is distinctly a characteristic of colloquial speech. 


• ^ (: ■ 


^ f \ 




CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


75 


less than sixty-five times throughout his work, and the com- 
parisons are drawn from more than a score of different 
objects.^ The device was a favorite one with Jean de 
Meung, too, for it is used at least forty-six times in his 
portion of the Roman, and in Guillaume ^s but once. Twenty- 
five separate objects furnish the comparisons.^ We find not 

3 The following list is, I believe, complete. Willi Haeckel, in Das 
Sprichwort hex Chaucer (Erlanger Beitriige, viii), printed a number 
of examples, but he overlooked many. The enumeration below does 
not include mere exclamations such as ‘ ‘ Strawe ! ’ ’ G. 925, or indeed 
any sentiment that does not contain the statement, ^4s noght worth 

^^he yaf nat a,’’ ‘^as much as a,’' ^^counte nat a,’’ ‘^sette nat 
a,’’ ‘‘avayleth noght a, ^^dere y-nough a,’’ or its equivalent. 

Bean. MB. 29, 39; T. iii 1167; T. v 363; A. 3672; B. 94,4004; E. 
1263, 1854. Bean-Straw. E. 1421. Butterfly. B. 3980; E. 2303-4. 
Cress. A. 3756. Corn (a grain). C. 863. Ely. PE. 501; A. 4192; 
B. 1360-61; E. 1132; G. 1150. Gnat. T. iv 595; D. 347; H. 254-5, 
Groat. T. iv 586. Hat. T. iii 320. Hay. H. 14; cf. E. 1567. Haw. 
T. iii 854, iv 1397-98; D. 659. Hen. A. 177; D. 1112. Jane (a 
small Genoese coin). E. 999. Leek. HE. 1708; D. 572; E. 1350; G. 
795. Mite. CM. 126; AA. 269; T. iii 900; T. iv 684; L. 741; A. 
1558; D. 1961; G. 511, 633, 698. Mote. T. iii 1603. Oyster. A. 
182. Rake-Handle. D. 949. Rush. T. iii 1161. Shoe. D. 708, 
Straw. B. Duch. 671, 718, 887, 1237; HE. 363; B. 2526, 4280; I. 601. 
Tare. T. iii 936; A. 1570, 4000, 4056. Tord. B. 2120. (While. T. 
V 882.) 

Chaucer also has ‘^ne . . . worthy unbokele his galoche. E. 
555. This phrase was doubtless imitated from St. Mark, i, 7, or St. 
John, i, 27. 

4 The verbs or adjectives most often used in the Erench form of the 
expression are ^^ne vaut un, ’’ ‘^ne prisent un, ‘41 n^en donroient 
un, ^ “ pas vaillant un, ’ ^ “ il ne valent un, ’ ’ “ ne vaudroit-il pas un. ’ ’ 
'Ail (garlic). 13859-60, 15513-14. Bille (piece of wood). 7303, 
10084-85. Bouton (button). 9239, 10413-14, 15152-53. Chastengnb 
(chestnut). 15255. Chiche (chick-pea). 7652-53, 10518-20. CiVB 
(onion or chive). 6062, 17407. CoQUE (cock). 7255. Coutel Troine 
(a white wooden knife). 11822-24. Denier (a small coin). 5379, 
13965, 14560-61, 20327. Escorce (piece of bark). 8440-41, 13162-3, 
14652, 19784-5. Eestu (straw). 5395-96, 6870-71, 9926, 12897, 18858- 


76 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


more than five of these common to Chaucer and the two 
French poets. In spite of the fact that this device of 
emphatic undervaluation was frequently used in France 
(other than in the Roman de la Rose) and in England, 
before Chaucer’s day,^ I cannot help thinking that the 

59. Grain de Mostarde (mustard). 15401. Grain de Poivre (pep- 
per). 6481. Guimple (wimple). 18167. Landon (stick of wood). 
16712. Lorain (strap). 6060. Maille (a small Genoese coin). 
5717. Navez (turnips). 18843-44. Oef (egg). 13792-93. Pipes. 
5775. Pois (pea). 2273, 15429-30. Pome (apple). 4747-48, 6019, 
7290-91, 9954-55, 13563-64, 19525, 19682. Prune. 6581-82, 8822-23. 
Seche (cuttle-fish). 12174. Seran (flax-comb). 15481-82. Tartre 
(tart). 14163. 

5 For illustrations of the use in French, see Rutebeuf (CEuvres, ed. 
Jubinal) : Je ne pris mie .ij. festus, II, p. 63, 1. 4; ^‘Mes cele ne 

done une bille,’^ II, p. 69, 1. 132; ‘‘Ne priseroit vaillant .i. oef,’' 
II, p. 210, 1. 103; “Ne m’est remez vaillant .i. sac,” II, p. 231, 1. 5; 
“et teil qui ne valent .ij. ciennes,” II, p. 99, 1. 11. Guillaume de 
Machault {CEuvres, ed. Tarbe) : “Ne delit qui vaille un festu,” p. 

99; “Que je ne prise sa franchise une truit,” p. 89; “Ne je ne prise 
un bee de jay,” p. 7; “Qu’il ne vaut I pourroit ongnon (rotten 
onion),” p. 82; “N’il ne doit or prisier II chiches,” p. 103. Gower’s 
Mirour de VOmme (ed. Macaulay): “Ne t’en redorroit une prune,” 
6648; “je ne douns un festu, ” 12098; “Mais la value d’un botoun, ” 
25629, etc. In the French Eoman de Guillaume de Dole occurs this 
rather striking example: 

Qui ne prisent mauves dangier 
La coue d’une violette. 288-289 

As illustrations of the use in English, the following might be cited 
from the romances : ‘ ‘ Sir, therof yive y nought a slo ! ” Amis and 

Amil, 395; 

He alone ayens us thre 

Nys naght worth a stre. Lyh. Disc, 421-22; 

“By his sar set he noght a stra. ” Ywain and Gawi/n, 2655; 

“Heo seide, Mahoun ne Appolin 
Were not worth the brustel of a swyn, 

Ayeynes my lordes grace.” King of Tars, 776-78. 

“He ne yaf a note (i.e., nut) of alle his othes, ” Haveloh the 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


77 


English poet^s predilection for this trick of diction came 
from his reading of Jean de Meung; for by no other two 
writers is it so frequently used as by Chaucer and the 
author of the second part of the Roman de la Bose. I do 
not mean to say that the phrases were translated directly 
out of the French poem; such copying would be unneces- 
sary. For, once a writer had the idea, he could ring all the 
changes of both verb and noun. So it was with Chaucer. 
All he needed, I should say, was a literary sanction of the 
usage (if, indeed, he would stand on ceremony), and he 
found authority in the Roman. Beyond this somewhat lib- 
eral admission of the French poet’s influence on the Eng- 
lishman it is unsafe to go. The most probable particular 
case of indebtedness has been cited in another connection. 
Koeppel compares Chaucer’s straiv with Jean’s festu; but 
says nothing of leek and cive^ haiue and pome, janne and 
denier. Not even in the case of unusual expressions, how- 
ever — and these, if any, would most likely be the ones to 
be taken over literally — can we say that Chaucer was fol- 
lowing one poet and not another.® 

Bane, 419; see also lines 465, 820, 314-15, 966, 1331, 2051. Gower in 
his English poem also uses the device: see Conf. Aman., II, 42, III, 
588, 1652, 667. The Owl and the Nightingale furnishes two of the 
earliest examples in English: ^^]?at nis wur]? on of hire heare, 1550, 
and ^^A tord ne yeue ie for eu alle,’’ 1686. 

If the reader cares for more, he should consult Sykes and his 
bibliography. 

SI wonder if Chaucer was thinking of False-Seeming ’s lines, 

‘‘Cist argument est trop fieus 
II ne vaut pas un coutel troine, ’ ^ EE. 11822-23, 

when he has Criseyde say to Troilus: 

^^Swich arguments ne been not worth a bene.’’ T. iii 1167. 


78 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(2) EXCLAMATIONS AND IMPRECATIONS 

Cursing, anathematizing, swearing by the saints or by 
the soul of one’s father or of oneself, seem to have been a 
very common habit of the Middle Ages. The French and 
English romances are full of it. Chaucer’s poor parson 
preaches against it in sections 35-38 of his Tale. The speech 
of Frenchman, Spaniard, Italian, Englishman, fairly bris- 
tled with ‘‘by saint Johns” or any other saint — adjurations 
harmless enough, perhaps, because of their frequency. 
It would be hard to trace this whole tendency to the 
French; it would be many times as hard to trace Chaucer’s 
use of such expressions to the influence of the Roman de la 
Rose, 

Let us consider Koeppel’s speciflc parallels. The Ger- 
man critic compares Chaucer’s “By Seynt Gyle,” HF. 
1183 and G. 1185, with RR. “par saint Gile,” 14676; also 
the oath “bi seint Denys of Fraunce,” B. 1341, with RR. 
“par saint Denis,” 9438. In King Horn, 1189, we And “bi 
seint gile,” and Hall in a note shows that this was a com- 
mon pilgrim’s oath.*^ It occurs not infrequently elsewhere 
in early literature.® The same remark may be made of “Bi 
Seint Denys,” the patron saint of France.^ There is no 
need of mentioning any more of the saints whose names 
were used in this way,^^ except, perhaps, the Wife of Bath’s 

King Horn, ed. by Joseph Hall (Oxford, 1901), p. 162. 

8 E. g., Lyl), Disc., 567, 756, 1060; Amis and Amil, 952. 

9 For other references to him, see Lyh, Disc., 57, 64; Amis and 
Amil, 1567; Rutebeuf, II, p. 74, 1. 248. 

11 The most common seem to have been John : Lyh, Disc,, 1688, 

715; Seven Sages, 2630; Degore, 728; Amis and Amil, 832, 956, 1336, 
1918, 1936, 1960, etc. Michael: Seven Sages, 1602, 2163; Lyh, Disc,, 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


79 


vehement and triumphant ^‘But he was quit, by god and 
by seint Joce!’^ (D. 483), which, as Skeat shows, was evi- 
dently taken from Jean de Meung’s Test ament It is 

perfectly clear that the habit of thus swearing by the saints 
was well-nigh universal in medieval literature — at least 
after the twelfth century. And it is also believable that 
the custom was even stronger in the spoken language. So 
Chaucer was not following Jean de Meung; he was follow- 
ing his own times. 

Likewise, when we find such expressions as ‘‘by myn 
heed’’ (A. 2670, HF. 1875), “by my pan” (A. 1165), “by 
my crown” (A. 4041, 4099), we are not obliged to infer that 
they were suggested by Jean’s par mon chief or par ma 
teste , for these occur elsewhere as well as in the Roman}^ 
Again, swearing by one’s own soul or that of one’s father 
in Chaucer has been referred by Koeppel to the Roman de 
la Rose. He compares with RR. 15218 and 2609, A. 781, 
E. 2265, 2393 ; B. 3127, 1178, in all of which Chaucer has 
“by my fader soule.” Although the appearance of this 
type of oath in English does not seem to be general, nothing 
definite can be proved about the source of Chaucer’s use. 
of it.^® 

740, 811, 1494, 1355; Ywain and Gawin, 701. Simon: Seven Sages, 

1104; Yw. and Gaw., 2661, etc. And there are also James, Thomas, 
Martin, Mary, Blanchart de Vitre, Julien, Remi, and a host of 
others. 

12 See Chaucer, V, 303. 

13 RR. 2004, 4894, 7488, 10052, 11135, 11816, 13523. 

14 RR. 9444. 

15 E. g., in Yw. and Gaw., 521. Cf. Seven Sages, 3413 ; Chev. an 
Lyon, 579. 

i« Neither Godefroy nor the New English Dictionary furnish ex- 
amples; though I dare say that on examination the Old French 


80 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


The expression ‘‘A wylde fyr upon thair bodyes falle,” 
A. 4172, says Skeat, means ‘^may erysipelas seize them and 
torment them/’ If this is the sense of ‘‘wylde fyr,” the 
word is one translation of the French mat feu, as Koeppel 
would have it. The curse “mal feu I’arde!” is spoken at 
least three times in the Roman de la Eose,^'^ and seems to 
have been common among the French.^® Marteau explains 
the phrase mal-feu thus : ‘ ‘ On appelait mal feu ou mal des 
ardens une epidemie charbonneuse qui fit de nombreuses 
victimes a Paris en 1131, sous Louis VI.” The wild-fire 
which means a composition of materials very combustible, 
readily infiammable and hard to extinguish, was often 
mentioned in the romances.^^ Then again, “wild-fire,” like 

contes, fableaux, and chansons de geste would yield many instances. 
Machault in his correspondence with Agnes of Navarre uses par 
m^ame constantly. (See Tarhe, pp. 135-154.) The phrase undoubt- 
edly was colloquial. In Twain and Gawin occurs a couplet which 
combines both swearing by one^s own head and the soul of one^s 
father : 

He swar by his owyn crowne, 

And his fadersowl, Uter-Pendragowne. 521-22 

17 I. e., RR. 8152, 9030, 11488. Michel translates mal-feu simply 
as mauvais feu. 

18 Cf. ‘^Renarz, la male flambe t^arde!^^ from the Boman de 

Benart in Paris-Langlois Chrestomathie, p. 168. The editors 
translate this line as ^ ^ Eenard, que le feu d ’enfer te brule ! ’ ’ Also 
from Aimeri de Narhonne: ^^De mal feu soit ele arse!’’ Ibid., p. 

77, translated in the same way. In Le Boman de Guillaume de Dole 
we find ‘^Que male fiambe puisse ardoir! ” 3979; and in Marie de 
Fi-ance’s Guigemar (ed. 'Warnke, 1900), ‘‘ceo doinse deus que mals 
feus 1 ’arde I ’ ’ 348. 

That some distinction was felt between mal feus and male flambe 
would appear from RR. 22289, ‘ ^ Mal feus et male fiambe 1 ’arde. ’ ’ 

i»See Skeat ’s note, V, p. 301. Cf. also King Alisaunder, 1615, 
1903, 2783-4, 2883, 3032. 


I 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


81 


mal’feu, possibly also meant ^‘hell-fire.’’ Chaucer ^s 

phrase may connote all three ideas of erysipelas, Greek fire, 
and hell fire. If erysipelas was known as ‘‘wilde-fyr’’ as 
early as Aelfric’s day,^° the term did not have to be rein- 
troduced into England from France. But even if it did 
come from France, the frequency of its use there makes 
is impossible to prove Chaucer’s indebtedness to Jean de 
Meung for this detail. The malediction wilde fyr upon 
thair bodyes falle” certainly belongs in kind with ‘‘The 
devel set hem on fuyre! {King of Tars, 646), “The deuel 
of helle him sone take!” {Havelok, 446) and “The devil 
sette hir soules bothe a-fyre!” (Leg. of G. W., 2493) — 
curses to be found everywhere in medieval literature. 

The exclamation “Avoy!” occurs once in Chaucer (B. 
4098). The situation is this; Chaunticleer is groaning un- 
easily in his sleep, when Pertelote, frightened, awakens 
him and asks what is his trouble. The cock then narrates 
his bad dream about the fox. Pertelote answers, 

“Avoy.” . . . “fi on you, hertelees.” • 

“Alas!” quod she, “for, by that god above. 

Now han ye lost myn herte and al my love ; 

I can nat love a coward, by my feith.” (4098-4101) 

Skeat glosses avoy very nearly correctly, I think, when 
he interprets it as fie! But as Pertelote uses the word, she 
expresses disgust as well as indignation. What she really 
says is, “Begone! fy on you, coward!” The fact that 
Chaucer repeats the “quod she” in the following line, with 
the interjection “Alas!” seems to be proof that avoy does 

20 See Skeat ’s note to A. 4172 (Vol. V, p. 125). 


82 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


not connote ‘^alas.’^ Koeppel implies that avoy, as used 
here, was taken from the Roman de la Rose, where the word 
occurs twice.^^ But Chaucer’s avoy is not equivalent to the 
French avoi, unless the latter be derived from the English 
away, as Marteau suggests.^^ Besides, the word occurs 
in English and Latin before Chaucer, as well as elsewhere 
in Old French.^^ And so altogether nothing definite can 
be said as to the source of this hapaxlegomenon in Chaucer. 
It would be just as fair to say that harrow! came from the 
Roman de Renart as avoy! from the Roman de la Rose; 
and upon whom, pray, might not such expressions as alas! 
par foy! be fathered? 

' ( 3 ) FIGURES OF SPEECH 

Allegory, or Personification 

‘‘On a souvent accuse les auteurs du Roman de la Rose 
d ’avoir mis a la mode I’aHegorie, qui a gate la poesie des 
siecles suivants. C’est une erreur semblable a celle du 
geographe qui attribuerait exclusivement I’existence d’un 
fleuve a I’un de ses nombreux affluents. Le Roman de la 

21 L. 7998, glossed by Michel as hold; and 1. 17369, where it clearly 
means helas. 

22 The editors of the New English Dictionary leave the etymology 

unaccounted for: ^^Avoy — (OF. avoi, avoy! of uncertain origin). 

Exclamation of surprise, fear, remonstrance.’’ Marteau (V, 106) 
gives his guess: ^‘Avoi — aliens, eh quoi! Racine angl. away.” Con- 
Btans, in his Chrestomathie, p. 174, defines the word as an ^‘inter- 
jection marquant I’etonnement et 1 ’indignation ; oh! ” 

28 See N. E. D. for instances, s. v. 

24 Godefroy (I, 536) gives nearly two columns of illustrations. He 
defines avoi as an “exclamation de surprise, de terreur, d ’affirmation 
^nergique, d ’exhortation, de commandement, de pri^re.” 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


83 


Rose s’est jete dans le courant des allegories, dont la source 
remontait tres haut et qui s’etait grossi depuis longtemps 
d^un grand nombre d ’oeuvres anterieures; il en a ete, cer- 
tainement, Taffluent de beaucoup le plus important, il en 
a augmente la force plus que tout autre, mais pas a Texclu- 
sion des autres.”^® 

Speaking of the influence of the Roman de la Bose, Pro- 
fessor Neilson writes: direct knowledge of that poem 

by any later mediaeval author is to be presumed about as 
certainly as a knowledge of the Bible ; and even though a 
writer had not himself read the boob, its influence would 
still appear in his work if he followed the allegorical tradi- 
tion at all. And this tradition, it has sufficiently appeared, 
every allegorist did follow. ’ ’ 

The kind of allegory in the Roman which seems to have 
been most used by Chaucer was nothing more than per- 
soniflcation of abstractions. Such characters as Pity, 
Cruelty, Gentilesse, Pleasance, and Delight are usually 
introduced into the English poet’s work simply to All out 
a situation, to elaborate a description, to turn a compliment, 
or perhaps to enforce a bit of satire. A complete list of 
the personified abstractions employed by Chaucer would 

25 Langlois, p. 46. The critic goes on to discuss the different kinds 

of allegory, and to show that by the end of the twelfth century 
allegorical poetry was in full bloom: ^^C’est Uepoque ou parurent 

l^Anticlaudianus et le de Planctu Naturae, d ’Alain de Lille; le 
Besant de Bieu, de Guillaume le Clerc; le Eoman des Eles, le Songe 
d’Enfer, la Voie de Paradis, de Raoul de Houdan; le Tournoiement 
d^Antechrist, de Huon de Meri; les deux romans de Carite et de 
Miserere, du reclus de Molliens; les Bestiaires, . . . et une foule 
d’autres compositions du meme genre.” p. 53. 

26 Court of Love, p. 228. 


84 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN BE LA ROSE 


run into the scores, I dare say; and a catalogue of those 
occurring in the Roman de la Bose would contain as many 
items.^^ Guillaume de Machault enumerates in Le Dit du 
Vergier alone at least twenty-two.^® Common sense should 
give sufficient assurance of the absolute futility of attempt- 
ing to trace the source of such mushroom growths as per- 
sonified abstractions. Even more than the device of 
picturesque negation can this be carried on indefinitely. 
And yet Skeat boldly asserts that the allegorical personages 
in these lines from the Prologue to the Legend, 

27 Personification appears to be most abundant in the Compleynt 
to Tite and the Parlement of Foules. In the former are mentioned 
Pite, Crueltee, Beautee, Lust, Jolitye, Manor, Youthe, Honestee, 
Wisdom, Estaat, Dreed, Governaunce, Bountee, Gentilesse, Curtesye, 
Trouthe, Desire. In the latter, in addition to seven already named, 
we fine Plesaunce, Aray, Craft, Delyt, Eool-hardinesse, Elatery, 
Messagerye, Mede, Pees, Pacience, Art, Behest, Jalousye, Richesse, 
Nature. In these two poems alone, then, occur thirty-two different 
personifications. 

For a goodly list of some in the Roman de la Bose compare the 
following : 

Dame Oiseuse la Jardiniere 
I vint 0 la plus grant baniere; 

Noblesce de cuer et Richesce, 

Franchise, Pitie et Largesce, 

Hardemens, Honors, Cortoisie, 

Delis, Simplesce et Compaignie, 

Seurte, Deduis et Leesce, 

Jolivete, Biaute, Jonesce, 

Humilite et Pacience, 

Bien-Celer, Contrainte-Astenence, 

Qui Faux-Semblant o li amaine; 

Sans li i venist-ele a paine. 11208-11219 

28 Voloirs, Pensers, Dous plaisir, Loiaute, Colors, Desir, Grace, Pitie, 
Esperance, Souvenir, Franchise, Atemprance, Dangier, Paour, Honte, 
Durtez, Cruautez, Doutance, Dous Penser, Espoir, Dangiers, Hardb 
ment. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


85 


A1 founde they Daunger for a tyme a lord, 

Yet Pitee, through his stronge gentil might 
Forgaf, and made Mercy passen Right (160-162), 

were suggested by the Roman de la RoseP Moreover, it 
must be indiscriminating enthusiasm for the French poem 
which will lead another investigator to say, referring 
to this passage in the Book of the Duchess, 

For that tyme Youthe, my maistresse. 

Governed me in ydelnesse. (797-798), 

that ‘‘ydelnesse is not perhaps without relation to Oiseuse,’’ 
— the maiden who opens the wicket to the dreamer in the 
Roman de la Rose. Surely Chaucer had seen youths reared 
in idleness, and knew the effects of such early training. 
Besides, there is no personification of “ydelnesse’’ here. 

The characterization of “ydelnesse” (G. 3) as “porter 
of the gate of delyces” was taken from the Romaunt, 528- 
594, says Skeat. Chaucer repeated the idea in the Knightes 
Tale, A. 1940, and in the Persones Tale, I, 714. There is 
no doubt that this allegory was due originally to Guillaume 
de Lorris. 

It is no more safe to say that Chaucer took two or three 
personified abstractions from the Roman de la Rose than 
that he took all those that are common to him and the 
French poem; unless, of course, other defining character- 
istics are also present. As, for example, 

“ jelousye. 

That wered of yelwe goldes a gerland.” (A. 1928-29), 

29 See Vol. Ill, 295. The rest of his note is more convincing. For 
the phrase, Mercy passen Right,’’ cf. T. iii 1282 and A. 3089. 

29a Miss Cipriani. 


86 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


which is surprisingly like 

Especiaument Jalousie 

0 tout son chapel de soussie (RR. 22816-17), 

as Koeppel showed. But Jean de Meung says nothing 
about ‘‘a cokkow sitting on hir hand^’ (A. 1930), a capital 
and distinctly Chaucerian touch. 

Similes 

Guillaume de Lorris seems to have been fond of short 
similes used descriptively. These are seldom more than a 
half-line in length. Very rarely, indeed, does either he 
or Jean de Meung employ the extended comparison which 
later was so characteristic of Dante. By Chaucer’s day 
many similes had become stereotyped and so commonplace 
as to have lost almost all suggestiveness. Their use was 
subconscious, so to speak; at any rate, we may consider 
it as a stylistic trait, because such similes were thrown in 
to fill out a line or to carry forward a narrative or descrip- 
tive passage. Often, however, they only marked time : they 
were chiefly used, at least by Chaucer, I think we may say, 
as literary ^‘padding.” 

To the ears of most of us to-day, a comparison like ‘‘She 
was as simple as a dove, or as a bride, ’ ’ sounds fresh ; but 
on fourteenth-century ears it probably fell with little effect, 
if, indeed, it was noticed at all. In the first part of the 
Roman de la Rose we continually meet with such phrases 
as “vert com une cive” (200), “nue comme vers” (554), 
“la face comme une pomme” (808), “plus noirs que 
mores” (918), or “que deables d’enfer” (964), “clere 


CHAUCEB AND THE KOMAN DE LA EOSE 87 

comme la lune^’ (1000), ‘Hendre comme rousee^’ (1003), 
blanche comme flor de lis’^ (1005), ^‘blanche comme nois’’ 
(1199), ‘^plus clere qu’argens fins” (1535). These have 
all been translated accurately and tastefully in fragment 
A of the Romaunt of the Rose.^^ Jean de Meung adds to 
Guillaume ^s list; he speaks of foolish men who believe the 
fawning words of fiatterers (^^Ansinc cum ce fust Evan- 
gile,” RR. 5600), and he describes Vulcan’s net as ^^Plus 
soutile que fil d’araigne” (19007). 

Chaucer, for his part, is not behind these French poets 
in the use of short similes. For the larger number of them, 
however, equivalents can be found in the romances and 
other early French and English poems. Such expressions 
as ‘^true as steel,” ‘^hair like gold,” ^^dead as a stone,” 
still as a stone,” ^‘cold as a stone,” color like the sun,” 
fresh as a rose,” white as milk,” had become platitudes. 
And we may use a hackneyed comparison to express the 
futility of the search for their source: it is like hunting 
for a needle in a hay-stack. 

Let us take even a somewhat more elaborate case to show 
the extent of this convention. Chaucer’s figure describing 
Blanche — 


That as the someres sonne bright 
Is fairer, clerer, and hath more light 
Than any planete, [is] in heven. 

The mone, or the sterres seven. 

For al the worlde, so had she 
Surmounted hem alle of beaute 

(B. Duch. 821-826)— 

30 Eom. 212, 454, 819, 928, 974, 1010, 1013, 1214, 1556-57. 


88 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAH DE LA EOSE 


is compared by Miss Cipriani to Guillaume de Lorris’s 
picture of Courtesy — 

El fu clere comme la lune 
Est avers les autres estoiles, 

Qui ne ressemblent que chandoiles. 

(RR. 1246-48; also 1000-02) 

A later critic, however, says that Chaucer was following 
Machault : — 

Si en choisi entre les autres une 
Qui, tout aussi com li solaus la lune 
Veint de clarte, 

Avoit ella les autres seurmonte 
De pris, d’onneur, de grace et de biaute.®^ 


But this figure is used in exactly the same way in Ger- 
man, Scandinavian, and Oriental literature.^^ It seems, 
therefore, to have been the common property of poets. 


31 Le Jugement dou Eoy de BeJiaigne, 11. 286-290. See Professor 
Kittredge’s Chaucenana in Mod. Phil., April, 1910. This parallel 
was pointed out by Sandras, although he mistook the poem for the 
Fontaine Amoureuse. Skeat perpetuated Sandras ’s error. 

32 Cf. this from the Nibelungenlied, Aventiure V, stanza 19 : 


Sam der liehte mane 
des scin so luterliche 
dem stuont si nu geliche 
des wart da wol gehoehet 


vor den sternen stat, 
ab den wolken gat, 
vor maneger frouwen guot 
den aieren heleden der muot. 


Or this from the Volsunga-Saga: 

^‘Gudrun had a daughter by Sigurd hight Swanhild; she was fair- 
est of all women, eager-eyed as her father, so that few durst look 
under the brows of her; and as far did she excel other woman kind 
as the sun excels the other lights of heaven.’’ Chapter XI, Morris’s 
translation, p. 151. For other examples in M. H. G. literature, see 
Ballerstedt, p. 23. 

Or this from The Arabian Nights: 

‘ ^ The women encompassed her, and appeared like stars ; she, in the 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


89 


When Chaucer says of Nature’s forming Virginia, 

For right as she can peynt a lilie whyt 
And reed a rose, right with swich peynture 
' She peynted hath this noble creature (C. 32-34), 

he is merely using conventional similes with an allegorical 
twist of the figure. Skeat compares with this passage ER. 
17178-80 ; but examples of the juxtaposition of the rose and 
lily to describe beauty are common enough.^^ Thirteenth 

midst of them, being as the moon when the clouds have withdrawn 
from before it.’^ The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, translated 
by Edward William Lane (New York), Vol. I, p. 384. In Vol. II, 
p. 10, we read, ‘‘The bride came forward among the female slaves 
like the moon among the stars, or the chief pearl among the minor 
pearls of the string.” 

In another part of the Boman de la Bose from that cited by Miss 
Cipriani occurs a much closer parallel to the description of the 
Duchess. Faux-Semblant says : 

Autant cum par, sa grant valor, (12751) 

Soit de clarte, soit de chalor, 

Sormonte li solans la lune, 

Qui trop est pli^ troble et plus brune (12754) 

• •••••• 

Tant sormonte ceste Evangile (12758) 

Ceus que li quatre evangelistres 
Jhesu-Crist firent a lor tistres. 

Be tex comparoisons grant masse 
I trovast-Ven, que ge trespasse, (12762) 

(The lines that I have italicized form an interesting bit of literary 
criticism.) Chaucer makes use of this figure of the brightness of 
the sun to describe the goddess Nature, in PE. 298-301. 

King Korn, 15-16; Boman de Guillaume de Bole, 696-7; and 
Machault’s rondeau, “Blanche com lys, plus que rose vermeille” 
(Tarb6, p. 51). For a woman’s color compared to the rose, see Lyh. 
Bisc», 1244, 880; King of Tars, 14; Le Jug, dou Boy de Beh, 358-9; 
Marie de France’s Eliduc, 1011-12; and RR. 844-45. Also Knightes 
Tale (A) 1037-38, which seems to be reminiscent of Bom., 855-56. 
The rhymes are identical. For ‘ ‘ white as a lily, ’ ’ compare RR. 1005 ; 


90 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


and fourteenth century poets — and reading public (!) as 
well — had definite requirements that the lady of romance 
must meet to be considered beautiful. First of all, she 
must have blonde hair, — ^yellow or golden, — gray eyes, 
rose-red complexion, arched eyebrows, long and straight 
nose, and small, ivory-white neck.®^ Her whole countenance 

Emare, 205; Sir Tryamour, 649; Knightes Tale (A) 2178. For 
numerous examples in French and Latin poetry, see Langlois, pp. 
40-41. 

34 It seems superfluous to record instances since such usage was 
almost universal; and once for all it may he said that such descrip- 
tions were entirely conventional. It is this kind of details that I 
wish to dispose of here; variations from them will be discussed in 
Chapter V. 

Hair. References to golden hair are many in Chaucer: B. Duch. 
858; PF. 267; HF. 1387; A. 3314; D. 304, etc. Yellow hair is 
mentioned in L. 1672, 1747; A. 675, 1049, 2166. Doubtless there were 
different shades of yellow meant, too; certainly the Pardoner’s hair, 
‘ ^ yelwe as any wax, ’ ’ is not to be put in the same class with Emily ’s. 
Golden, I suspect, w^as used sometimes to describe red hair — not brick 
red, but golden red — for gold was regularly given the epithet red in 
English and Germanic literature. Professor Carpenter, in his trans- 
lation of the Nihelungenlied (World’s Great Classics), in a note on 
p. 391 says, ^^The comparison of the brilliant color of a blooming 
northern beauty to gold, ^red gold,’ as it is constantly called in Old 
German and Old English poetry, forms a curious contrast with the 
phrases of Catullus, ^inaurata pallidior statua, ’ ^magis fulgore ex- 
palluit auri, ’ and that of Statius ^ pallidus f ossor redit erutoque 
concolor auro,’ not to mention the saying of Diogenes that gold was 
pale through fear of those who had a design on it.” At any rate, 
a typical beauty’s hair was blonde. Michel, in a note to RR. 527 
(Vol. I, p. 18) says, ‘^Dans le moyen flge, ni homme ni femme 
n’etait repute beau s’il n’avait les cheveux blonds. Voyez a ce sujet 
une note de Theatre frangais au moyen age, p. 58. Les cheveux noirs 
etaient rare a la fin du Xllle siecle; cependant il est question de 
combattants blonds et mors, de ^personnes noires et blondes,’ dans 
une chronique de I’epoque, dans la Branche des royaux lignages, de 
Guillaume Guiart, v. 2756 et 6925.” 

Eyes. Skeat in a note to A. 152 (Vol. V, p. 17) says, ^^This 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


91 


must shine as the sun. Such descriptions could be, and 
probably were, written automatically by the poets of the 
“courtly school” of Chaucer’s day, and it is useless to 
attempt to find an original for them. 

(grey) seems to have been the favorite color of ladies^ eyes in 
Chaucer’s time and even later/’ and he cites a number of instances. 
Grey was used to translate the French vair, as may be seen by com- 
paring A. 152 and 3974 with 

Les iex ot vairs come cristal (Fab. de Gombert et des deux clercs). 

Absolon’s eyes ‘^greye as goos” were doubtless the color of Dame 
Idleness ’s: 

‘‘Les iex ot plus vairs c’uns faucons, ” (RR. 533). Compare also 
Rom. 546 with RR. 533, and Rom. 862 with RR. 850. Vair was the 
conventional color of eyes in early French poetry. Cf. RR. 811, 1202, 
1581, etc. But the word also meant scintillating, shining, as well as 
grey. Compare Eoman de Guillaume de Dole, 705, where the word 
cannot signify gray or blue. See also Marteau’s note 16 to Vol. I. 

Complexion. “Bright, fresh, rosy, new,” are the adjectives com- 
monly used to describe a beauty’s complexion, or rode. See note 33. 

Eyebrows. Eyebrows must be arched and must not run together. 
In the description of Oiseuse we read. 

Son entr’oil ne fu pas petis, (RR. 530) 

which means that the space between her eyes and the space between 
her two eyebrows was not small; in other words, it was well marked. 
In line 529 Oiseuse is said to have “sorcis votis. ” So also again 
in line 1202. With RR. 849, 

Les sorcis bruns et enarchies, 

we might compare what is said of the Carpenter’s dainty wife: 

Ful smale y-pulled were hir browes two. 

And tho were bent, and blake as any sloo. (A. 3245-46) 

In the Eoman de Guillaume de Dole are mentioned, 

t 

Sorcils bien fez. Ions et tretiz. 

Non pas joignans, c’est veritez. (706-707) 

(Cf. also 1. 362.) Chaucer evidently considered joined eyebrows no 
mark of beauty: 


92 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


However, when Chaucer says that Fortune is like ‘‘filth 
over y-strawed with floures/’ B. Duch. 628-9, he is using 
a rarer figure, and may be following RR. 9656-62, as Koep- 
pel noted.^^ The poet^s comparison of the deceitful Dame 

And, save hir browes joyneden y-fere, 

Ther nas no lak, in ought I can espyen. (T. v. 813-814) 

See Krapp^s article in Mod. Lang. Notes, Vol. XIX, p. 235. 

In the Court of Love RosialUs eyebrows are thus described: 

. . . lovelich browes, flawe, of colour pure, 

Bytwene the which was mene disseveraunce 

From every brow, to shewen a distaunce. (782-84) 

In fact, the whole full-length portrait of this maiden is worth reading 
because of the conventionalities it makes use of (778-833). But 
complete word-pictures in color of ideal beauties were frequent in 
literature long before Chaucer ’s day. 

Nose. The Prioresse^s nose is ^^tretys. See Skeat’s note to A. 
152. Pug-noses were clearly not in style even in Guillaume de Lorris ’s 
day. Compare 

Et si n’ot pas nes d^Orlenois, 

Aincois Uavoit lone et traitis, (RR. 1200-1201) 

although there seems to have been plenty of them in real life to make 
fun of. See MichePs note on the proverbial Orleans nose (Vol. I,’ 
p. 39). Also compare Lyl>. Disc., 885. 

Neck. In the English metrical romances necks were usually white 
as ^^swan, w^hale-bone, snow, flower on the hill, milk, etc. Compare 
Chaucer’s B. Duch. 939ff.; A. 238; King of Tars, 16; Lyh. Disc., 
889. In French poetry, RR. 539-40; Bom. de Guil. de Dole, 713-714; 
Machault’s Confort d^Ami (Tarbe, p. 99, line 32), etc., etc. 

Adornments. Nearly all the beautiful women in early French 
poetry wore crowns of gold and jewels or wreaths of flowers. Chap- 
lets appear in literature long before Guillaume de Lorris ’s Boman. 
Cf. Boman de Guillaume de Dole, 199, 204-5, 1537-8, etc. Chaucer’s 
description of Alcestis, L. 215-217, which Skeat compares with Boman, 
1108-9, is founded upon a conventional idea; it probably owes noth- 
ing directly to Guillaume de Lorris. 

35 Langlois points out no analogue to this passage in the Boman. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


93 


Fortune to a scorpion, B. Ducli. 636-641 and E. 2058-64, 
Koeppel thinks was inspired by RR. 7480-82. But as Chau- 
cer more than once elsewhere likened false women to scor- 
pions and appears to have had abundant literary and popu- 
lar tradition to copy,^® it is unnecessary to look to the 
French as original. 

A very curious note of Skeat^s to E. 880, — 

Lat me nat lyk a worm go by the weye, — 

may be reproduced here as a sample of a scholar’s con- 
fusion: ‘‘These lines (i.e. 880-882) are Chaucer’s own; 

1. 880 is characteristic of him. The phrase in 1. 880 seems 
to have been proverbial . . . But Chaucer got it from 
Le Roman de la Rose, 445; see his translation, 1. 454.” 
Now, the similitude in the Roman forms a part of the 
description of Povrete; and there is no suggestion of “go 
by the weye” in 

Qu’ele iere nue comme vers. 

As Skeat says, the comparison was doubtless proverbial. 
Why, then, should Chaucer necessarily have had to learn 
it from the French poem? 

Haeckel (p. 57) shows that “strokes as thikke as hail” 
(L. 655) was proverbial. There is no need of assuming 
with Koeppel that this simile was taken from RR. 16558- 
59. Nor can it be proved that the innocent clause “As 

Cf. B. 360, 404, and Skeat notes. III, 479, and V, 153; also D. 
1994-95, which Skeat says is from RR. 17528 and 10547-50. His note 
(V, 337) is not altogether convincing. Sandras compares B. Duch. 
633-37 with a passage from Machault^s BemMe de Fortune; see 
Etude, etc., p. 291, and Chaucer, I, 479. 


94 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


craft countrefetetli kinde’^ (HF. 1213) was imitated 
directly from RR. 16967 — a parallel of SkeaFs. 

Again, Skeat compares ^‘Singeth ful merrier than the 
papejay,’’ E. 2322, with RR. 10845-46. The parallel is 
close, hut the figure is not unusual in early poetry. ‘^The 
papejay,’’ as Mead has noted, seems to have held a 
place by a sort of prescriptive right in the lists of medieval 
birds, and references to it are not infrequent. Mach- 
ault, for instance, speaks of the ^^jolis papegaus.”^^ 
Chaucer himself mentions this bird several times.^^ 

The proverbially beautiful voices of mermaids, which 
furnished Chaucer with this characterization of Chaunti- 
cleer. 

Song merier than the mermayde in the see, (B. 4460) 

are mentioned in the Roman , 11. 675-678, but the resem- 
blance is probably of little significance. 

A comparison of the figure found in T. iv, 519-520: — 

This Troilus in teres gan distille. 

As licour out of alambyk ful faste, 

with the passage that probably suggested it — 

Je vois maintes fois que to plores 
Cum alambic sus alutel, (RR. 7118-19) 

will reveal the superiority of the English turn of the words. 
It seems more appropriate to speak of the person distilling 
tears than to speak of an alembic weeping. The effective- 


s' SquyVj etc., p. lix. 

28 Tarbe, p. 45, 1. 20. 

39 PE. 359; B. 1559, 1957. 


CHAUCEB AND THE KOMAN DE LA EOSE 


95 


ness of the scene is enhanced, moreover, by the implied 
silence of Troilus’s grief. With line 519 we might also 
compare King Horn, 676: — 

And horn let the teres stille. 

Miss Cipriani says that Reason’s speech (RR. 7118-7143) 
is to be considered in connection with Chaucer’s humorous 
conception of Troilus and Pandarus. So it is, but not here 
in Book IV. Pandarus has become all sympathy, and does 
not feel in a jocular mood. Nor does he during the rest 
of the story. 

The circumstances under which Pandarus uses the simile 
‘^Alday as thikke as been flen from an h 3 we,” (iv, 1356), 
are so unlike those under which the Amis, quoting from 
Valerius, speaks of wicked women, who 

Sunt essains plus grans que de mouches, 

Qui se recuillent en lor rouches (RR. 9472-73), 

and the figure is so familiar that we will leave Koeppel to 
prove Chaucer’s indebtedness for it to the French poem. 
Koeppel also, by the way, equates this couplet from the 
Roman with T. ii, 193-94. 

The simile in PF. 148-151 appears to owe nothing to 
Rom, 1182 ff. (RR. 1164 ff.), where the attractive powers 
of silver and gold are compared with the well-known prop- 
erty of ^^adamaunt.” 

Metaphors 

A few metaphors in Troilus and the Canterbury Tales 
have been traced to the Roman de la Rose, and there the 


96 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


scent seems to have been lost. For instance, Pandarus’s 
cheering words to Troilus — 

Stand faste, for to good port hastow rowed, (i, 969) — 

is said to translate RR. 13700-701. But the expression was 
very common. It occurs at least fifty years before the 
Eoman^^ Chaucer expresses the same idea in the line 

^^And do that I my ship to haven winne.’’ (AA. 20) 

The Wife of Bath’s reply to the Pardoner, who has inter- 
rupted her in her Prologue, 

Nay, thou shalt drinken of another tonne 

Er that I go, shal savoure wors than ale (D. 170-171), 

Skeat says is probably due to the Roman de la Rose, 7549- 
56. Koeppel adds RR. 11396-99, which is a much closer 
parallel : — 

Des tonneaus qu’il a tous jors dobles, 

Dont Tun est cler et Tautre trebles, 

(Li uns est dous, et 1 ’autre amer 
Plus que n’est suie ne la mer). 

40 I. e., in the Boman de GuiL de Dole : 

Bien est a droit port arrivez. (1. 1393) 

As early as Ovid we come across the same thought: 

Contigimus portus, quo mihi cursus erat. 

(Bern. Amor., 812.) This figure runs all through the Ars Amatoria. 
Cf., for instance, Ars Amat., II, 9-10, with Pandarus^s words of re- 
straint to Troilus. Rutebeuf has the following couplet, which is 
worth comparing in this connection: 

Arivez fusses a mal port 
Ou il n’a solaz ne deport; 

(CEuvres, II, p. 259, 11. 590-91.) 


1 




CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


97 


In the Wife^s boast, 

I made him of the same wode a croce (D. 484), 

Skeat clearly shows that Chaucer was copying Jean de 
Meung^s Testament Koeppel draws attention to a simi- 
lar expression in RR. 15162-63 : — 

Puisque vous m’aves faite coupe 
Ge vous ferai d’autel pain soupe. 

But this type of figure is very ordinary, is thoroughly collo- 
quial, and was doubtless of popular origin. 

Miss Cipriani compares the following line and a half. 

For she, that of his herte berth the keye. 

Was absent (T. v, 460-461), 

with RR. 2018-20, and might pertinently have added AA. 
323-24— 

Arcite hath born awey the keye 

Of al my worlde and my good aventure. 

The lines referred to in the Romany 

Lors la me toucha au coste, ^ ' 

Et ferma mon cuer si soef, 

Qu’a grant poine senti la clef, 

record how the god of Love locks the dreamer’s heart as a 
pledge of loyal and constant service. There is only a gen- 
eral similarity between this situation and that expressed 
in the two passages quoted from Chaucer — one where 

41 The French goes, li ref ait sovent d^autel fust une croce.’’ 

See note in Vol. V, 303. 


98 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Criseyde, who is represented as having the key of Troilus^s 
heart, has deserted her lover and is soon to prove false; 
the other where Anelida is bemoaning the fact that the 
faithless Arcite has run off with the ‘‘key of her worlde,^’ 
that is, her love, honor, peace of mind. An explanation of 
the significance of the lines in A7ielida and Arcite may he 
found, I believe, in Machault’s Le Livre dii Voir Bit. When 
the lover, who is the poet himself, comes to part with his 
mistress, she takes a key of gold, hands it to him, and says, 
‘ ‘ Guard it well, for it is the key of my treasure. ’ ’ 

Si attaingni une clavette 
D’or, et de main de maistre faite 
Et dist : ceste clef porteres. 

Amis, et bien la garderes ; 

Car c’est la clef de mon tresor. 

Je vous en fais seigneur des or; 

Et desseur tout en serez mastre, 

Et si Taim plus que mon oeil destre: 

Car c’est m’onneur; c^est ma richesse; 

C’est ce dont je puis faire largesse. 

(Tarbe, pp. 49-50^^) 

These lines from the French and the passage in Anelida 

42 Tarbe ’s note (s. v. clavette, p. 161) explains a little more 
definitely and may be quoted in part: ^^Parmi les usages singuliers 

en vigueur au moyen age, il faut certainement compter celui des 
ceintures de chastetA Les jeunes filles et les jeunes dames en 
portaient . . . L ’usage de ces ceintures etait alors assez general: 
on en montre encore dans les musees d’ltalie. Eustache Descbamps 
y fait allusion dans un de ses virelais: s’il s’agit d’une jeune fille 
qui fait 1 ’^numeration de ses appas: 

Que quinze ans n’ay, je vous dis. 

Moult est mes tresor s jolis; 

S’en garderay la clavette, etc.” 



CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


99 


and Arcite are not unlike a couplet in Twain and Gawin : — 

Thou ert the lok and kay also 

Of al my wele, and al my wo. (2681-82) 

The figure of the cold sword of winter, which cuts down 
the flowers and drives away the birds, is both personifica- 
tion and metaphor. Chaucer uses it twice — L. 127 and F. 
57. It occurs in the Roman de la Rose , — 

II fauche 

Les florettes et la verdure 
A Fespee de sa froidure. (6678-80) 

but Jean de Meung took it directly from the Anticlaudianus 
of Alanus de Insulis, says Ballerstedt: — 

Sicque furens Aquilo praedatur singula, flores 
Frigoris ense metit, et pristina guadia delet. 

(VII, 8, 21-22) 

Three lines from Machault^s Jugement don Roy de Navarre 
resemble the RR. passage very closely: — 

Car bise Favoit tout desteint 

Qui mainte fleur a decopee 

Par la froidure de s’espee. (34-36) 

It is uncertain to whom Machault and Chaucer were in- 
debted; possibly Jean de Meung, possibly Alanus. De 
Meung ’s figure is much finer than MachaulFs. 

Criseyde’s determined line. 

Shall noon housbonde seyn to me ‘^Chekmat,’’ 

(T. ii. 754) 

which Koeppel refers to RR. 7388-89, — 

Eschec et mat li ala dire 
Desus son destrier auferrant. 


100 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


has just as close a parallel in Rutebeuf’s Le Miracle de 
Theophile : — 

Bien m’a dit li evesque: ‘‘Escliac/’ 

* 

Et m’a rendu mate en Bangle : 

Sanz avoir m’a lessie tout sangle. (6-8) 

Even if B. Duch. 660-661 is taken from the Roman de la 
Rose,"^^ one should remember that Rutebeuf, the author of 
the Roman de Poire, Deschamps, and Machault all used the 
figure of a game of chess. It is only fair that they, too, 
be allowed to have had some infiuence on Chaucer in this 
detail! The figure seems to have been often employed by 
medieval poets, and may well have been colloquial. 

An almost literal translation of the Roman that Koeppel 
and Skeat have both missed is Chaucer’s 

Taketh the fruyt and lat the chaf be stille. (B. 4638) 
G’en pren le grain et laiz la paille. (RR. 11986) 

Elsewhere Chaucer uses this metaphor of the grain and 
the chaff, or straw, as in 

Me list nat of the chaf nor of the stree 

Maken so long a tale, as of the corn. (B. 701-2) 

But yit I sey, what eyleth thee to write 

The draf of stories and forgo the corn? (L. (a) 311-12) 

Let be the chaf, and wryt wel of the corn. (L. (a) 529) 

But the comparison was very old.^^ 

43 See Skeat, I, 480, 478. 

44 See Jeremiah, xxiii, 28, and St. Matthew, iii, 12. Rutebeuf uses 
grain and faille in juxtaposition in 

^^Je sui li grains, il sont la paille.’’ 

{(Euvres, II, p. 283, 1. 559.) 


V 


\ 

N 

CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE IQl 

I doubt very much if Troilus’s beautiful apostrophe in 
the lines 

0 sterre, of which I lost have al the light, 

With herte soor wel oughte I to bewayle, ^ 
That ever derk in torment, night by night. 

Toward my deeth with wind in stere I sayle ; 

(v. 638-41) 

is reminiscent of a passage Miss Cipriani quotes from the 
Roman, 8300-305. For variety, I cite Ellis’s translation of 
the lines : — 

The mariner who steers his bark 
Through unknown seas, when night falls dark, 
Kegardeth not one only star 
To guide his course, nor would he far 
Entrust his ship with one poor sail. 

But try what others might avail 
’Mid storm and tempest. (7935-7941) 

The reader can judge for himself. This figure of the 
mariner steering by the stars, it might be remarked, occurs 
again in the Romany 16871-74. 

The legend of the Phoenix was so common in the Middle 
Ages that there is no need of deriving the knight’s char- 
acterization of the Duchess, — 

Trewely she was, to myn ye 
The soleyn fenix of Arabye, 

For there liveth never but oon ; (B. Duch. 981-83) 

from the account of this rara avis in the Roman de laRose,^^ 

45 Lines 16913 ff. See Skeat^s note, Vol. I, p. 485. Compare also 
The Pearl, ed. Osgood, 11. 429-432. 


102 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


The French poet says, 

Tons jors est-il un seul Fenis; 

but he also quotes from Valerius, in another place: — 

Prodefame, par saint Denis, 

Dont il est mains que de fenis. (RR. 9438-39) 

The deduction is unavoidable. Surely Chaucer did not 
have this passage in mind! 

Anaphora 

Anaphora need not detain us long, as this rhetorical 
device was freely used in the older literature. Professor 
Mead^® recalls the fact that Chaucer ^‘begins sixteen con- 
secutive lines in the Hous of Fame, iii, 871-886 (misprinted 
876), with Of, and twenty-four lines in the Farlement of 
Foules, 337-364, with The/^ Mead also mentions T. v, 
1828-1832, 1849-1854. Although this usage is very com- 
mon in the Roman de la Bose, it is found elsewhere in 
early French and Middle English literature.^^ 

46 In his edition of The Squyr of Lowe Degre (Boston, 1904), p. 
90, note to lines 941-954. 

47 cf. RR. 4910-27, 5074-79, 5095-5100, 5785-88, 9340-47, 9680-86, 
11836-11840, 12515-21. In Rutebeuf ’s Du Secrestain et de la Famme 
au Chevalier, 49-60, ten lines out of twelve begin with the word 
Envie. The identical passage, with the exception of the last line, is 
repeated in La Voie de Paradis, 344-354. In La Vie Saint e Marie 
VEgiptianne occur seven consecutive verses beginning with the em- 
phatic For toi. Compare Machault (ed. Tarbe), pp. 42, 78; Roman 
de Guillaume de Dole, 361-63, 370-73, 431-435, etc. 

For instances in Middle English, see, besides Meades note. King 
Alisaunder, 2212-15, 3418-22; Moral Ode (B-text, ed. Morris), 82-87; 
Owl and Nightingale (MS. Jes. Coll., ed. Wells), 66-69, 89-91, 776- 
780; 796-801, etc. In the Confessio Amantis, Bk. Ill, 279-285, seven 
consecutive lines begin with 0. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


103 


Rhymes and V ocabulary 

No scholarly investigation into the question of the influ- 
ence of the Roman de la Rose on Chaucer’s rhymes and 
vocabulary can be made until there appears a critical text 
and complete glossary of the French poem. It is to be 
hoped that Langlois’s long-promised edition will supply 
the want soon. The Chaucer Society has furnished accu- 
rate enough material for a study of the English poet’s half 
of the comparison; but Michel’s text of the Roman is far 
from adequate. Kaluza’s painstaking reconstruction of the 
parts of the French poem that correspond to the English 
Romaunt^^ gives a starting-ground at least, and in a later 
work^^ he gives tables in which we find that there are a 
hundred and eight identical rhymes in Chaucer’s genuine 
work and the part of the French poem corresponding to 
fragments A and C of the English translation. While this 
information is interesting enough, and while it is not im- 
possible that Chaucer used the Roman as a sort of rhyme- 
dictionary as well as encyclopedia of facts, it cannot be 
proved, except in a few cases that are discussed in other 
connections in the present work, that the English poet 
owed any particular rhymes to the French poem. Nor can 
we prove, until we have an Old French dictionary of the 
type of the New English Dictionary, Chaucer’s indebted- 
ness to the Roman de la Rose for words that he uses else- 
where than at the ends of verses. 

48 Max Kaluza : The Bommmt of the Bose, from the Glasgow MS., 
parallel with its original, Le Roman de la Rose, Part I. — The Texts. 
Ch. Soc., 1891. 

49 Chaucer und der Bosenroman (Berlin, 1893), pp. 84-123. 


104 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Koeppel instances a few cases of identical words and 
phrases which he thinks owe something to Jean de Meung. 

Nepor quant il vous tient en lesse (RR. 8056) 
is to be compared with 

And sin that slouth her holdeth in a lees (Gr. 19). 

The investigator also cites Jean de Meung ’s Codicile: 

Povrete, qui si vous compresse, 

Qu’elle vous maint com chien en lesse. (34-35) 

Lesse and lees here mean the same thing, leash — a thong 
or line in which hounds are held.’’ This word is found in 
English as early as 1300, and the phrase ‘‘in a lees” ap- 
pears to have been not uncommon.^® Certainly the idea 
of comparing a person held in restraint to a hound strain- 
ing in the leash, could have occurred originally to scores of 
sport-loving Englishmen. There is no doubt that lees was 
taken over from the French ; but it had been adopted long 
before Chaucer’s day. 

The phrase “do [make] no fors,” meaning “to take no 
account of, attach no importance to, ’ ’ is used several times 
by Chaucer: B. 4131; D. 1234, 1512; H. 68; I. 711, etc. 
Other verbs such as lety give, take, have, were equivalent to 
do or make in this expression, which we find in English 
as early as Robert of Brunne, 1303.®^ Godefroy^- gives a 
few instances of ne pas faire force d’un chose, meaning 
“n’en etre pas effraye, n’en pas faire difficulte,” but he 

50 See N. E. D., s. v., definition 1, for examples. 

51 See N. E. D., s. v. force, definition 21. 

52 Vol. IV, p. 65. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


105 


does not cite examples from the Roman de la Bose. Koep- 
pel parallels these lines in Chaucer with RR. 14219 and 
21016; but enough has been said to show that the phrase 
was not unusual. Indeed, the wealth of synonyms for ^ ^ do ’ ’ 
as opposed to the single French ‘^faire’’ seems to indicate a 
special English development of this kind of expression. 

The earliest recorded occurrence in English of nacioun, 
meaning family, kindred,’’ is in the Wife of Bath’s Tale 
(D. 1067). Koeppel derives Chaucer’s use of the word 
from RR. 19545 — ^^Par noblece de nacion. ” But Gode- 
froy^^ gives many early examples of this regular meaning 
of ‘^naissance, extraction, rang.” So, even if we are cer- 
tain (which we are not) that Chaucer introduced this 
meaning into English — a meaning now obsolete — ^we can 
by no means be sure that he got it from the Boman.^^ 
Critics seem to forget that a poet’s experience or learning 
is not all derived from 'books, and it is perfectly possible 
that Chaucer anglicised many French words that he had 
never seen in print, but had only heard on the Continent, 
or in London, for that matter. 

The phrase ‘‘to love par amour” is defined in the New 
English Dictionary thus: “(usually) to love by way of 
(sexual) love, to love (a person of the opposite sex), to love 
amorously or as a lover, . . . sometimes, to have a clan- 
destine or illicit amour with,” and examples are given 
from Floris and Blanchfleur, Cursor Mundi, Wright’s 
Lyric Poems, and Barbour’s Bruce. In Chaucer, “par 

53 Vol. V, p. 462. 

54 Machault uses the word in this sense in a poem that Chaucer 
undoubtedly knew, Le Jugement dou Boy de Navarre (3861). 


106 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


amours” is often used adverbially to mean ^^passionately, 
longingly. ’ ’ Machault uses the phrase in the same sense : 

Se par amours n’amiez autrui ne moy, 

Ma grief doulour en seroit assez mendre.^® 

Chaucer’s perfect familiarity with the expression makes it 
manifest that the English poet did not have to go to the 
one, almost chance, appearance of it in the 

The word ^ ^ chevisaunce, ” which appears three times in 
the Shipmamies Tale (B. 1519, 1537, 1581) and which 
means a ‘‘borrowing” according to Skeat, has been attrib- 
uted by Koeppel to the influence of RR. 14714 : — 

Metra tantost main a la horse, 

Ou fera quelque chevissance 
Dont li gage auront deliverance. 

Outside the Roman de la Bose the occurrence of chevissance 
is rare in OP., if one can judge from Godefroy’s quotations. 
The Oxford Dictionary gives one or two instances in Eng- 
lish before 1380. Chaucer uses the word in the Legend of 

65 B. 1933, A. 2112, ^^That loveth paramours, and hath his might, 

a line which Skeat most unwarrantedly asserts is from RR. 21715, 
and L. (a) 260. See Skeat ’s note to this last line {Chaucer ^ III, 
301). This critic himself says (V, p. 67 — note to A. 1155), ^^To 
love par amour is an old phrase for to love excessively. Cf. Bruce, 
xiii, 485. ' » 

66 The first two lines of a rondeau that may be found in Tarbe ^s 
edition, pp. 53-54. 

67 For other examples of the expression, ^ ‘ to love paramours, ^ ^ 
outside of Chaucer, see Kittredge: Authorship of the Bomaunt of 
the Bose (Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, Vol. I) 
p. 17. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


107 


Phillis (L. 2434), with the meaning provisions, sub- 
stance,’’ and rhymes it with mischaunce : — 

And maken in that lond som chevisaunce. 

To kepen him fro wo and fro mischaunce. 

Curiously enough the Roman has the same rhymes in the 
following couplet: 

Et quant el voit la mescheance 

Si quiert honteuse chevissance, (6893-94) 

a resemblance not noted by Koeppel. Elsewhere, chevis- 
sance is rhymed with remembrance (3113-14), poissance 
(8179-80), and deliverance (14714-15). Chaucer rhymes 
chevisaunce with countenance (B. 1581-82), reconissaunce 
(B. 1519-20), and governance (A. 281-82). The identical 
rhymes in the Legend and the Roman suggest an indebted- 
ness to the French poem; but I do not attach any special 
significance to the parallelism. As to the use of chevi- 
saunce in the Shipmannes Tale, I am satisfied to believe 
that Chaucer found the word in some French source for 
the story, if he did not already know it. 

The use of the words ‘^piment and clarree” in a gloss to 
Boethius, bk. II, meter v, was due to RR. 9129-30, says 
Skeat. ‘^Chaucer uses these two words here in conjunc- 
tion, for the simple reason that he was thinking of the 
parallel passage in the French Rom, de la Rose, which 
is imitated from the present passage in Boethius” (Vol. 
II, p. 432). Let us see how the translation of Boethius 
runs: ^^They ne coude nat medly the yifte of Bacchus to 
the deer hony ; that is to seyn, they coude make no piment 
nor clarree^^ (11. 5-6). Obviously, to anyone who knows 


108 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN HE LA ROSE 


how piment is made, there is enough in the quotation pre- 
ceding the italics to suggest the name of the wine. Fur- 
thermore, these two words, ^‘piment’’ and ‘^clarree,’^ had 
appeared in conjunction many times in English and French 
before Chaucer’s day.^® 

As for the phrases in Boethius II, pr. viii, line 31 and 
III, pr. viii, line 26 (the knowing of thy verray freendes 
and the beautee of thy body,) Miss Cipriani supposes the 
influence of the Roman de la Rose, 5682-83 and 9063-64 
respectively. While I cannot bring forward ^^counter- 
parallels,” as in the case above, I believe that the italicized 
explanations of Chaucer could without any trouble have 
been suggested by the context. At least, the question is 
decidedly an open one. 

Finally, the following words used by Chaucer have been 
attributed to their appearance in the Roman: 


Skeat also implies that carole (B. Duch. 849) was due 
to the influence of the Roman (747-48), etc. 

Atempre, meaning ‘temperate, moderate, well-regu- 
lated,” appears in English as early as 1340. The more 
common form of the word in the Roman is atrempe, 4505, 
6811, 6826, etc. In fact, I believe that atempre occurs only 
once. But it was in general use elsewhere in Old French 

68 Mead, in a note to line 760 of the Squyr of Lowe Degre, cites 
a number of instances; Bich. Coer de Lion, 3481, 2625, 3601; King 
Alisaunder, 7581-82. See also Life of St, Alexis, 72, and EaveloTc, 
1728. See Godefroy for examples in Old French. 


atempre, (B. Duch. 341, L. 128) 
estres, (L. 1715, A. 4295) 
fers, (B. Duch. 654) 


(BR. 125) 
(RR. 13456) 
(RR. 7400) 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


109 


poetry. Machault uses it. However, as Chaucer was fol- 
lowing Guillaume de Lorris for other material in this part 
of the Book of the Duchess, he probably took over atempree 
from him. 

Estres, meaning ‘^apartments, dwellings, quarters; the 
inner rooms of a house,” was known in English nearly a 
century and a half before Chaucer. The New English 
Dictionary furnishes these examples : Anc. Riw. 296, Curs. 
Mundi, 2252, E. Alis. 7611, Art. and Merl. 816, Wm. of Pal. 
1768. In French the word was not unusual. 

Fers, ‘‘the piece of chess now known as the queen,” is 
recorded only twice with this meaning in the New English 
Dictionary — Chaucer’s use of it here, and Surrey’s. The 
Old French form is fierce, fierche, or fierge, and appears 
not infrequently. The English spelling is so different from 
the French that Chaucer may have used the word as he 
heard it, not as he read it. 

Carol, meaning originally “a ring dance with an accom- 
paniment of song,” was used in English as early as 1300. 

The uselessness of dogmatizing about where Chaucer 
must have found his French words is easily apparent. In 
the Roman of Guillaume de Dole, for instance, we find 
estre no less than eight times, fierce once, and caroler six 
times. 

(5) VARIOUS OTHER DEVICES OF EXPRESSION 

(a) Emphatic Repetition in Interrogative Form 

“Der Franzose liebt es, sich selbst zu verbessern, indem 
er das anstossige wort am anfang der verszeile fragend 
wiederholt, um es mit allem nachdruck ablehnen zu 


110 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


konnen/^ writes Koeppel;®^ then proceeds to enumerate 
instances of this device in the Roman de la Bose, viz. : lines 
8776, 15034, 16199, 17103. Examples of the same sort of 
thing are to be found in Chaucer, he has noticed; — 

‘‘Bet? ne no wight so wel,’’ quod he. (B. Duch. 1045) 
“ Repentaunce ! nay fy,’' quod he. (Ibid. 1115) 

“Nede!’’ nay, I gabbe now, 

Noght “nede,’’ and I wol telle how. (Ibid. 1075-76) 
Servage? nay, but in lordshipe above. (F. 795) 

Jason? certes, ne non other man. (F. 548) 

This trick of emphasis by repetition is to be found in much 
other French poetry.®^ Besides, it is a common enough 
colloquial device to express doubt, astonishment, or ridicule. 
It is employed by these early writers, particularly, in dia- 
logue that is meant to be brisk. Chaucer probably did not 
have to go out of his own home to become thoroughly 
acquainted with all the uses of the artifice. 

(b) Emphasis hy a Series of Contrasts 

The oratorical effectiveness of a list of antitheses has 
always been recognized, from classical times to Euphues, 
from Love’s Contrarieties^'^ to the Tale of Tivo Cities. 

59 Anglia, XIV, p. 265. 

60 Compare Chev. au Lyon (extract in Paris-Langlois Chrestoma- 
thie), 145-46, 199-200, 493-4, 618, 619, which is particularly full of 
examples of this usage. Also these lines from Rutebeuf; 

Dirai-je lui? nenil, sanz doute. (II, p. 122, line 233) 

Pourquoi? qu T1 s’en estoit fuiz. (II, p. 127, line 376) 

Bien ferme? quar, i prenez garde! (II, p. 127, line 387) 

61 A slight twenty-one line poem in Davison ’s Poetical Bhapsody, 
ed. Bullen (London, 1891), Vol. II, p. 41. 

62 See the first paragraph of this novel. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


111 


In the Prologue to the Confessio Amantis, Gower speaks of 
the fickleness of the times, and uses a long series of con- 
trasts (11. 921-941). The force of such a device was often 
dissipated in the case of the mediaeval poets by the undue 
extension of the catalogue ; three or four lines would make 
a much more powerful effect than twenty. But an author 
of the thirteenth or fourteenth century took pride in 
making a display of his ingenuity — the more antitheses he 
could bring together, the finer the passage. We notice this 
same inability to stop in the elaborate tree-lists, flower- 
lists, bird-lists, musical instrument-lists, and lists of all 
kinds with which poets — and prose writers, too — padded 
their work. 

Chaucer was fond of using series of contrasted ideas, 
but was not uniformly happy in the instances. A com- 
parison of the vivid picture conjured up by Pandarus in 
not more than seven lines: — 

For thilke ground, that bereth the wedes wikke, 

Bereth eek thise holsom herbes, as ful ofte 
Next the foule netle, rough and thikke 
The rose waxeth swote and smothe and softe 
And next the valey is the hil a-lof te ; 

And next the derke night the glade morwe ; 

And also joye is next the fyn of sorwe. (T. i, 946-952) 


63 Lines 946-949, it has not been noted hitherto, I believe, are a 
literal translation of Ovid’s Bemedia Amoris, 45-46: 

% 

Terra salutares herbas eademque nocentes 
Nutrit, et urticae proxima saepe rosast. 


112 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


with the tiresome complaint of the knight in the Book of 
the Duchess (599-616) would certainly give the palm to 
Troilus’s friend. As he grew more mature in his art, 
Chaucer himself must have realized the value of brevity, for 
Troilus’s lament (at least the inventory of opposites), so 
similar to the Knight’s of the early poem, is only two-fifths 
as long.®^ 

The enumeration of the ‘^rouninges and jangles” in the 
Hoiis of Fame (1960-1976) is little more than a collection 
of words with their antonyms. There is ingenuity but no 
poetry displayed in the passage. 

Jean de Meung and Guillaume de Machault have been 
suggested as the originals for B. Duch. 599-616. There is 
nothing to disprove the assumption that both poets inspired 
the lines — Machault immediately and Jean indirectly. 
Sandras says (p. 292), Cette kyrielle d’antithesis est un 
emprunt malheureux fait a G. de Machault.” Skeat com- 
pares RR. 4910-4951* (RR. 5018-58, verses which Meon 
thinks were added by a scribe of the fifteenth century, con- 
tinue the list of the contrarities of love.) Chaucer may 
well have taken the passage, or the idea for it, from Ma- 
chault, who took it from Jean de Meung, who took it 
from Alanus de Insulis,®® who took it from — ? It is but 
fair to add that the antitheses of not only love, but money, 
women, fortune, are to be found catalogued in trouvere 
poetry. Even Richard Rolle of Hampole can think of 

64 T. V. 1373-1379. 

65 Le Jugement dou Boy de Behaigne (ed. Hoepffner), 177-187. 

66 See Langlois, p. 149. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


113 


twenty-two contrasted states of man in this unstable life 
here below.®'^ 

(c) Lists of Birds, Trees, Spices, Musical Instruments 

Closely related to the enumeration of objects or condi- 
tions and their opposites is the enumeration of species be- 
longing to the same genus, whether it be, as noted above, 
musical instruments, wines, weapons, trees, flowers, spices, 
fish, birds, beasts, or what not. And the device was not 
only well-established by Chaucer’s day, but had probably 
already begun to decline in popularity. Tree-lists, for in- 
stance, had flourished in literature since the days of Ovid.®® 
This Latin poet started out with the respectable number of 
twenty-five species mentioned within the space of fourteen 
lines. Statius, Seneca, Claudian, and Lucan add very few 
new names. Not until we get to the Roman de la Rose, 
tracing the device chronologically, do we find a list of speci- 
mens that will vie with Ovid’s in length. Guillaume de 
Lorris, in thirty-one lines (1338-1368) records thirty-six 
different kinds of trees. The first twenty-three are the 
names of trees bearing fruits, spices, and nuts; the rest of 
the list, with the exception of oliviers (olive), consists of 
trees valuable only for shade and vrood. 

67 See FricTce of Conscience (in Morris* Skeat 's Specimens, II) 11. 
1450ff: 

Eor now es mirthe, now is murnyng, 

Now es laghter, and now es gretyng; 

Now er men wele, now er men wa, 

Now es a man frende, now es he faa; etc. 

68 See Skeat ^s notes, I, 511, and V, 92. 


114 CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 

As is well known, Chaucer has two tree-lists — PF. 176- 
182 and A. 2921-23. Skeat, in a note to the first refer- 
ence, says, ‘‘Chaucer’s list of trees was suggested by 
a passage in the Teseide, xi, 22-24 ; but he extended his list 
by help of one in the Roman de la Bose, especially 11. 1363- 
68. . . . This list contains seven kinds of trees out of 
Chaucer’s thirteen.” It is very easy to make an item by 
item comparison of Chaucer’s catalogue with all the tree 
catalogues that had preceded him, and to show what is 
common to the English poet and his predecessors. But is 
one to infer that because Chaucer mentions beeches , he 
had to take the idea from the French fos ? Skeat does not 
insist, on the same reasoning, that box-tree (178), which is 
not mentioned in the Roman, is from the Latin buxum, 
which appears both in Ovid and Claudian! Of Chaucer’s 
thirteen trees, the names of all but three — cypress, olive, 
and laurel — had existed as English words since Anglo- 
Saxon times. Is it to be supposed that our poet could not 
think out a few things for himself? It would not be a 
difficult task for any person of fair education to sit down 
and write out, merely from his own observation and expe- 
rience, the names of a score of trees that he knew. I admit 
that it is probable that Chaucer took the idea of character- 
izing the trees in the garden from the Roman de la Rose, 
whether directly or indirectly through the Teseide;^^ like- 
wise the trees forming the funeral pyre of Arcite. But 
the idea was all he needed; he had sufficient ingenuity to 
select his own woods. 


89 Sandras points out parallels between the Teseide and the Boman 

(p. eiff.). 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


115 


A comparison of Chaucer’s bird-list, which the poet pur- 
posely made as long as possible, with its source, Alanus de 
Insulis’s De Planctu Naturae, shows that even here the 
English poet did not exhaust the possibilities of his orig- 
inal. For of the thirty-six birds mentioned in PF. 330-364, 
eleven, or nearly one-third, are not found in the De 
Planctu, while the Latin work enumerates nine (ten, in- 
cluding the bat) that Chaucer is silent about. Five of 
Chaucer ’s extra eleven he could have taken from the Roman 
de la Rose (647-674), where thirteen different kinds of 
birds are named. Chaucer’s list is the longest of the three 
and contains the names of six birds — cuckow, cormorant, 
lapwing, robin, goose, feldefare — ^not in Alanus or Guil- 
laume. As in the case of the trees, we must admit that the 
English poet knew for himself a few birds and their traits. 

Much as Chaucer appears to have been indebted to Ala- 
nus, it must nut be forgotten that, when using the Latin 
wTiter, the English poet was merely refreshing his mind on 
information he had acquired before. For instance, the 
belief in the owl as the foreboder of death is common to 
all folklore, and is not originally a literary tradition.”^^ 
Even in the case of the birds common to the De Planctu 

70 Compare what the nightingale says of the owl in O. and N, 
(Jesus MS.), 1137-1164. Skeat states that PF. 343 is from the De 
Planctu: ^‘Illic bubo, propheta miseriae, psalmodias funereae lamen- 
tationis praecinebat. ’ ’ He also adduces as parallel RR. 6709-14. But 
the French lines, as Ballerstedt has shown, are not based on the De 
Planctu, but the Anticlaudianus, lib., VII, chap. 8, 11. 41-43 : 

Hie raro philomena canit, cytharizat alanda: 

Crebrius hie miseros eventus bubo prophetat. 

Nuntius adversi casus et praeco doloris. 

A dozen other references in literature to the owl might be given. 


116 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


and the Parlement, — twenty-four or five in all, — Chaucer 
does not use what Alanus said about the falcon, quail, lark, 
dove, heron, sparrow, nightingale, swallow, pheasant, raven, 
and crow. By adding these eleven to Chaucer’s eleven 
that Alanus does not mention at all, one can see that for 
twenty-two of his thirty-six birds, or nearly two-thirds of 
the whole number, the English poet was not under obliga- 
tions to any one writer. The Roman de la Rose need not 
have served him at all. 

The short spice- and bird-lists in Sir Thopas, (B) 1950- 
1961, are disposed of by Mead as follows: ^‘Any one 
who recalls Chaucer’s habit of gathering, perhaps un- 
consciously, choice phrases from his favorite book, the 
Roman de la Rose, will find nothing diflBcult in the position 
that he gleaned everything he needed for this passage from 
the Roman, This does not conclusively prove that he drew 
upon the French poem, familiar though he certainly was 
with it, for he could have found the same collocation in 
Kyng Alisaunder (11. 6790-6799), in a passage possibly, 
though not probably, based on the more extended catalogue 
in the Roman de la Rose/^ Speaking of the birds men- 
tioned in B. 1956-61, Mead further observes: ‘^So far is 
this list from being distinctive that it can easily be made up 
from Chaucer’s own writings, or those with which he was 
certainly familiar. ” This cautious position is clearly 
the safest one to take when such poetical conventions as 
birds, trees, and spices are under consideration.'^^ 

71 See Squyr of Lowe Degre, pp. Iv, Ivi, and foot-notes. 

72 Ibid., p. Ixiii and note. 

78 Mead’s examination into the date of the Squyr, pp. lii-lxv, in- 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


117 


And so we will pass by the reference to musical instru- 
ments in the Hons of Fame with this final observation, that 
although Chaucer employed in his early work somewhat 
extended catalogues of one sort or another, he had the intel- 
ligence and poetic sense soon to see the ridiculousness of 
such material outside of an encyclopedia or text-book ; and 
that after Sir Thopas he wrote little or nothing of this sort 
for which his readers could criticise him. Even in the 
Hous of Fame he was probably laughing at himself for his 
unpoetical enumerations. 

(d) Transitional and Summarizing Sentences 

Several of the transitional lines and couplets that 
Chaucer uses are compared by Koeppel and Skeat with 
similar verses in the Boman de la Rose. These are listed 
below : 

(a) But flee we now prolixitee best is, (T. ii. 1564) 
appears to be a literal translation of RR. 19233 : 

Bon fait prolixite foir. 

(b) But noght nil I, so mote I thryve 

Been aboute to discryve 

A1 these armes that ther weren . . . 

For hit to me were impossible ; 

Men mighte make of hem a bible 

Twenty foot thikke, as I trowe. (HF. 1329-35) 

eludes a discussion of the relation of the romance to Sir Thopas, 
and furnishes many parallels from early literature of just the kind 
of conventions we have been considering. 

74 LI. 1214-1226. Compare Skeat ^s note to line 1218 (Vol. Ill, 
268) and Meades remarks on a similar passage in the Squyr, pp. 
93-94. As Mead says, ^^the minstrelsy at feasts is a commonplace 
of the romances, and the lists of instruments are much alike. 


118 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Koeppel thinks that this thought is from RR. 7474-76, and 
it is true the two passages are not unlike. The expression 
is common, however ; and is one that a poet would naturally 
use to get out of a long enumeration. Machault has the 
same sort of thing, if not the same words : 

La maintes paroles deymes 
Que je ne veuil pas raconter ; 

Quar trop long seroit a compter. (Tarbe, p. 46) 

Si toutes les volois dire, 

Je ne les te porroie lire, 

Ou center en un jour et demi. (Ibid. p. 107) 

(c) Suffyceth heer ensamples oon or two. 

And though I coude rekne a thousand mo. (A. 1953-54) 

In comparing this passage with RR. 17626-27 : 

Mes n^en vuel plus d ’examples dire, 

Bien vous puet uns por tous sofSre, 

Koeppel would appear to have taken Chaucer’s ^^oon or 
two” as equivalent to the French ^^uns por tous”! Or 
maybe the poet himself misread the French. However, the 
two sentiments are sufficiently alike to excite comment and 
sufficiently ordinary to let us waive it."^'^ 

(d) Chaucer’s beautiful and striking figure — 

But al that thing I moot as now forbere. 

I have, god woot, a large feeld to ere, 

75 If one must have a source for Chaucer ^s couplet, the following 
is more satisfactory, for the first line of it is almost literally trans- 
lated by A. 1954: 

Mil exemples dire en sauroie, 

Mes trop grant conte a faire auroie. (RR. 14204-5) 

See also Ovid’s Eemedia Amoris, 461: Quid moror exemplis, quorum 
me turba fatigat? 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


119 


And wayke been the oxen in my plough, 

The remenant of the tale is long y-nough. (A. 885-888) 

which in all probability was inspired by Jean de Meung’s 

Ne vous voil or ci plus tenir, 

A mon propos m’estuet venir, 

Qu ’autre champ me convient arer (RR. 22211-13) 

is nevertheless entirely different from the French in its 
application. Besides, there is no parallel in the Roman for 
A. 887. 

(e) Probably this summarizing couplet, which Chaucer 
used more than twice : 

As I have told yow here-tofore; 

Hit is no need reherse it more; (B. Duch. 189-190) 

(cf. C. 229-30; P. 1465-66, 1593-94) is a translation of RR. 
7995-97, as Koeppel has observed, though this idea, too, is 
a commonplace. 

(f) There may no tonge telle, or herte thinke” (E. 
1341), also T. V. 445, 1321, appears to have come from RR. 
2977-79 or 21307-8 : 

Cuers ne porroit mie penser 
Ne bouche d’omme recenser. (Koeppel) 

(g) Koeppel also compares RR. 7155, 21863 and Jean de 
Meung’s Testament, 1543 with B. 3900, 3688, and T. v. 
1482, respectively. The English lines translate the French 
literally, but I believe that the phrases were stock formulas. 
L. 609 anticipates B. 3688, while RR. 3001 has ^‘se la lettre 
ne ment,” instead of ^^se Fescriture ne ment.” 


120 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(h) The refrain general, this renle may nat fayle^' 
{Fortune, 56, 64, 72) resembles the French 

Ceste mile est si generaus, 

Qu’el ne puet defaillir vers eus, (RR. 19911-12) 

with which Skeat compares it ; but the two are not equiva- 
lent. Generaus means infailUMe, ‘ ^ absolute. ^ ^ At most, the 
English line can be no more than a vague recollection of the 
French couplet or a very natural misunderstanding of it. 

(i) Such parallels as ‘‘Sitost cum tens et leu verrai’^ 

(RR. 22242) 

and 

Whan that she saugh hir tyme, upon a day, (D. 901) or 
And whan he saugh his tyme, he seyde thus: (F. 966) or 
That shal I seyn, whan that I see my tyme ; (L. 101) 

do not appear significant to me. Chaucer uses only ^Hyme,’’ 
never ‘Hyme and place’’ (tens et leu)."^® 

(j) Again, we may mention RR. 11448-49: 

En plusors sentences se mistrent. 

Divers diverses choses distrent, 

a trick of expression which is translated in the English 
Romaunt, 5813-14, and is used by Chaucer several times : 

Diverse folk diversely they seyde, (A. 3857) 

Diverse men diverse thinges seyden, (B. 211) 

Diverse men diversely him tolde 

Of mariage many ensamples olde. (E. 1469-70) 

76 See also T. i 351, ii 1720-21; A. 4050; B. 1128; E. 1114, 1804, 
1858, 1936, 2001; F. 1308. (These examples are taken from Kaluza: 
Chaucer und der Bosenroman, p. 210.) 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 121 

Diverse folk diversely they denied ; 

As many hedes, as many wittes ther been. (F. 202-203) 

Dante has the same kind of diction in 

Virtu diversa fa diversa lega 
col prezioso corpo ch’ elF avviva, 

{Paradiso II, 139-40) 

(k) No one after reading Goddard’s delightful and 
brilliant essay on the Legend of Good Women will agree 
with Koeppel that Chaucer ’s confession, 

Of trewe men I finde but fewe mo 

In alle my bokes, save this Piramus, (917-18) 

was inspired by Jean de Meung’s stolid statement: 

Mes moult est poi de tex amans. (RR. 15088) 

In commenting on the English lines, Goddard writes: 
‘^Only a person in that unwarrantable mood which, as 
was said at the beginning, is to be studiously avoided in 
this discussion of the legends, would think of suspecting 
that Chaucer, by the phrase, ^in alle my bokes,’ intends to 
suggest that the place to look for true men is in real life 
rather than in literature.” 

(l) The Knight’s gratuitous criticism at the end of his 
description of the temple of Diana — 

Wei couthe he peynten lyfly that it wroghte, (A. 2087) 

is like Guillaume de Dorris’s comment on the portrait of 
Vilanye — 


Moult sot bien paindre et bien portraire 
Cil qui tiex ymages sot faire, (RR. 163-4) 


122 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Compare the translation, Rom. 175-176. The context 
makes the resemblance even closer: both the Knight and 
rAmant conclude with the words quoted, after having 
described paintings on walls. This resemblance has not 
been recorded hitherto. 

By way of summary of this already too long chapter it 
may be said that while most of the parallels discussed are of 
little significance as showing Roman influence on Chaucer, 
taken as a whole they furnish excellent illustrations 
of thirteenth and fourteenth century tendencies of style. 
They have been treated at some length inasmuch as there is 
not only fascination but a distinct value in ‘‘parallel-hunt- 
ing.’’ I am not inclined to regard more than eighteen of 
the correspondences here recorded as standing in the rela- 
tion of cause and effect ; but it must be admitted that with 
the exception of a few examples, which I have endeavored 
to show are worthless or exceedingly far-fetched, the paral- 
lels are more or less significant. On the other hand, the 
lines quoted or referred to form a very small portion of the 
total number of lines of medieval French and English 
poetry. The larger number of stylistic devices have not 
been touched upon. Moreover, not a few of those treated of 
are colloquialisms, for which no literary source need be 
sought. It is possible that the Roman de la Rose, by its 
use of these, sanctioned them for Chaucer, but we cannot 
safely infer that what is common to J ean de Meung and the 
English poet was adapted from the earlier writer by the 
later. The burden of proof still lies upon those who main- 
tain that the Roman had any considerable influence upon 
Chaucer’s style. 


CHAPTER V 


Situations and Descriptions 

Sandras (p. 36) makes this statement with regard to 
Chaucer’s description of natural scenery: ‘^C’est an point 
que ce poete, qui sentait les beautes de la nature, qui savait 
les peindre, se content souvent dans ses descriptions d’etre 
le copiste de G. de Lorris.” If the French critic had said, 
instead of ‘^le copiste de G. de Lorris,” ^M’imitateur de 
I’ecole de G. de Lorris,” he would have expressed himself 
in such a way that English students could not be offended. 
To say that a favorite poet is a copyist is to call critics to 
arms, and the case of Sandras was no exception. But if he 
had been able to present the array of parallels that have 
been gathered together since his Etude appeared, probably 
no person fifty years ago, or since, would have challenged 
his words. Besides, it must be remembered that Sandras 
did not say toujours, but only souvent, a very elastic word. 
All in all, Sandras ’s general position is not untenable; for 
if we may trust in strong circumstantial evidence, the 
young Chaucer did belong to the school of Guillaume de 
Lorris, as did, for that matter, Boccaccio and Machault. 

Before proceeding to the examination of the specific 
parallels that Skeat and Miss Cipriani have noted, and the 
discussion of some that have escaped these two investigators, 
we may recall what Neilson says about sources and source- 
hunting: ‘Mt is necessary, if we are to prove anything with 
regard to those sources which actually suggested certain 


123 


124 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


features of [the poem under consideration], to find either 
striking parallelisms in detail which cannot be set aside as 
commonplaces, or the presence of some distinct feature 
which in itself is not a regular part of poems of the type. ’ ’ ^ 
As a corollary to this proposition we may reasonably assume 
the following: If in a particular poem there appear fea- 
tures common to a certain class of poems and also details 
that are peculiar to or are emphasized in only one member 
of that class, the poem which furnished the special details 
also probably furnished the commonplaces. 

Instances of descriptions of nature for which Chaucer is 
thought to have been indebted to the Roman de la Rose 
may be tabulated as follows. (The list includes all the 
parallels of this sort that I have been able to find) : 


B. Duch. 291-3 (S) 


RR. 45-47 


295-7 (S) 

301-2 (C) 

304-5 (C) 

317 (C) 

318-19 (C) 
340-42 (S) 
410-12 (S) 
406-9 (S) 

418-20 (S) 


9176-79 
1375-76 
RR. 129-131 
21449-55 
21585-88 
21327-28 
21491-93 
21518-21 
21589-90 


67-74 

665-68 

707-10 

74-77 

100-101 

124-25 

55-58 


PF. 122 (S) 

129-30 (C) 


204-10 (C) 


1 Court of Love, p. 228. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


125 


Leg. G. W. 
125-26 
128 
132-37 
148-68 

153-59 


(Prol. B.) : 

(S) RR. 55-58 
(S) 125 

(C) 22500-509 

(C) 10563-99 

6460-6520 
(C) 10593-599 


To these may be added: 

B. Duch. 309-311 
421-433 
414-415 
PF. 190-191 
192-196 
T. iii. 351-354 ) 
ii. 50-52 ) 

L. (b) 139-40 
Sq. T. (F) 52-55 

A few striking facts are disclosed by the data above : 

(a) That the references to the Roman fall into compara- 
tively well-defined groups; 

(b) The fact that all the descriptive passages referred to 
in the BooTc of the Duchess, with the exception of one, cor- 
respond to lines in the French text that are translated in 
Fragment A of the English Romaunt; 

(c) That all the references in Chaucer’s work, except 
the stray reminiscence in the Squieres Tale, are from poems 
written before 1386 ; 

(d) The repeated use of the same verses from the Roman, 
especially 54-74, 124-5, 665-668, 708. 

The one poem of Chaucer’s which appears from the par- 
allels cited to owe the largest amount of its nature descrip- 


RR. 487-493 
1377-1390 
53, 56 
665-668 
1383-1390 

47-54 

707-708 

67-73 


126 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


tion to the Roman de la Bose is the Book of the Duchess. 
These passages all fall within one hundred and fifty con- 
secutive lines, or from the opening of the Dream (291) to 
the end of the description of the animals in the park (442). 

For convenience of reference, the details of the situation 
may be summed up as follows: (1) The poet dreams that 
he is awakened early one morning in May (291-294) by (2) 
the sweet singing of birds (295-297), which (3) were sitting 
and chirping on the tiled roof of his chamber (298-300). 
(4) They were singing, each in its own fashion, a solemn 
service (301-302). (5) Some sang high, some low, but all of 
one accord (304-5). (6) Their music sounded heavenly 

(306-8). (7) Not for the town of Tunis would the poet 

have missed hearing them sing (309-11). (8) The whole 

room began to ring with the harmony (312-16), for (9) 
every bird was doing its utmost (317-20). (10) The walls 

of the room were all decorated, the glazed windows had the 
whole story of Troy worked into them (321-331). (11) On 
the walls was painted the entire text of the Romance of 
the Rose (332-334). (12) Through the closed windows 

streamed the sunlight, gilding the bed (335-338). (13) 

The sky was bright, the air clear, the temperature moderate 
— neither hot nor cold (339-343). The next fifty-four lines 
do not concern us. The poet jumps up at the sound of the 
huntsmen’s horn, takes his horse, leaves the room, never 
stopping until he reaches the open field where the hunters 
are assembled. The whole crowd rides to the forest. Now 
follows a brief account of the hunt, which seems to have 
been unsuccessful. A whelp that has been left behind in 
the running comes up to the poet and fawns on him as if 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


127 


it knows him. The poet tries to catch the animal, but it 
flees. (14) In the chase after the whelp the poet is led down 
through a flowery green full of soft thick grass, and covered 
wdth flowers (397-401). (15) He conjectures that Flora 

and Zephirus made their dwelling there (402-404). (16) 

So thick are the flowers that the earth seems to vie with 
heaven and its stars (405-409). (17) Earth had forgotten 

the poverty and sorrow that wdnter had made it suffer 
(410-415). (18) The poet next describes the tall trees, 

forty or fifty fadme lengthe,’’ that stood at least ‘^ten 
foot or twelve’’ apart (416-422). (19) The leaves and 

branches so interlaced that all was shadow below (424- 
26). (20) All around the poet animals were playing — 

the ‘‘herte,” hind, fawns, sorrels, bucks, does, roes, and 
squirrels (427-433), more than Argus even could count. 

Such, in rough, are the contents of the dream to the point 
where the poet meets the Black Knight. In the following 
discussion the numbers in parentheses refer to the sections 
of the poem enumerated above. 

With (1) Skeat compares RR. 44, 46, and the coiTe- 
spondence is very close. Chaucer’s ^‘me thoughte thus” 
equals ^‘avis m’iere,” and ^‘me mette thus” equals ‘‘ce 
songoie.” Skeat equates ^^And in the dawning ther I lay” 
with ^^qu’il estoit mains,” which appears in Meon’s text, 
hut did not appear in the mamiscript which the English 
translator was following (compare Bom., 49). But, it may 
be said, Chaucer found this detail in RR. 88, ‘^Qu’il estoit 
matin durement,” which is prettily translated in the 
Bomaunt: 

That it was by the morowe erly. 


(94) 


128 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


(2) and (3) are original situations with our poet. He 
avoids the confusing dream-within-the-dream of Guil- 
laume de Lorris, and imagines himself awakened by 
a most natural cause — ^the early morning chirping of the 
birds. (4) seems at most only reminiscent of the Roman de 
la Rose. (5) translates RR. 709, but adds the touch ‘‘and 
al of oon acorde/^ which agrees with RR. 484-485 {Rom., 
496-97). (6) seems to paraphrase RR. 667-668 again, and 

(7) is the same sort of expression that we find in RR. 487- 
493 f though, it may be noted, Chaucer, unlike the dreamer 
in the Roman, does not say that he would not have missed 
the song of the birds for a hundred pounds; he balances 
their harmony against the whole town of Tunis. The name 
of the African city may have been introduced here for the 
sake of the rhyme. (8) is original with Chaucer, naturally, 
because (2) is original. As to (9), of the French original 
lines 100-101 repeat the idea of 74-77, and that is the idea 
expressed in B. Duch. 317-318, though 319 is original with 
Chaucer. (10) is a brilliant addition of our poet’s, and 
Skeat ’s note on these lines is pertinent. The critic remarks : 
“As stained glass windows were then rare and expensive, 
it is worth while observing that these gorgeous windows 
were not real ones, but only seen in a dream.” (11) While 
it might have been suggested by the painted walls in the 

2 A similar expression, which Chaucer uses to characterize the Ship- 
man, 

‘^Ther nas noon swich from Hulle to Cartage,’’ (A. 404) 

is compared by Skeat with EE. 6099. As Cartage is the only word 
common to the two lines, and as this sort of comparison by elimina- 
tion is very common in O. F. poetry, I attach no significance to 
Skeat ’s parallel. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


129 


Garden of Mirth, Chaucer idea of having not only the 
‘^text’’ but also the glose (which may mean either the com- 
mentary or the margin of the manuscript page) of ^^al the 
Bomaunce of the Bose’^ engraved on the walls of his bed- 
room is decidedly unique. (12) is a rather pretty touch 
and is, of course, original, as the situation does not appear 
in the Boman de la Bose, For (13) Chaucer is thought tc 
have used 

Clere et serie et bele estoit 
Le matinee et atempree: 

although a similar description of an early morning in 
spring — 

Et li jours fu attemprez par mesure, 

Biaus, clers, luisans, nes et purs, sans froidure, 

occurs in a poem of Machault ’s that Chaucer certainly used 
later on in the Book of the Duchess.^^ But if we apply our 
corollary, we must admit that in this detail of the weather 
the English poet is following the Boman or the Bomaunt; 
for ‘^And ful attempre, for sooth, it was’’ (B. Duch. 341), 
is almost exactly like ‘^And ful attempre, out of drede” 
{Bom., 131).^ (14) has had no source pointed out for it, 

2a Le Jugement dou Boy de Behaigrie (ed. Hoepffner), 113-114. 

3 In his discussion of the Boole of the Duchess, Skeat re- 
marks ^ ^ (Chaucer ^s) familiarity with the (Roman de la Rose) . . . 
is such as to prove that he had already been previously employed in 
making his translation of that extremely lengthy work, and possibly 
quotes lines from his own translation.’^ (Vol. I, p. 63.) But in a 
note on the same page the critic supports” his statement by this 
additional information (italics mine) : ‘ ^ Most of the passages which 
he quotes are not extant in the English version of the Romaunt. 
Where we can institute a comparison between that version and the 


130 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


although all the dreamers in the Middle Ages imagined 
themselves in flowery, grassy meadows (that is, all of this 
sort), and we may consider these lines possibly a recollec- 
tion of RR. 1401-1409 (cf. Bom, 1418-29). (15), as has 

already been mentioned in Chapter III, seems clearly to 
come from the Roman de la Rose. Sandras suggests as a 
source for these lines a part of Reason’s long allegorical 
discussion of fortune : 

Les floretes i fait parair, 

Et cum estoiles flamboier, 

Et les herbetes verdoier 

Zephirus, quant sur mer chevauche. (RR. 6674-77) 

But the situation in the Roman is totally different from 
that in the Book of the Duchess. Besides, nothing is said 
of Flora. Skeat’s parallel, however, names both Flora and 
Zephirus ; 

Cil dui font les floretes nestre, (RR. 9162) 

a line which B. Duch. 403 translates literally. In (16) 
Chaucer introduces his comparison of the flowers and the 

Book of the Duchess the passages are differently worded. Cf. B. 
Duch., 420, with R. Rose, 1393.’’ 

To disprove this last statement, I suggest a comparison of B. 
Duch. 291, and Rom. 49 ; B. Duch. 304-5 and Rom. 717 ; B. Duch. 
341 and Rom. 131. 1 do not understand how the ‘ ‘ familiarity ” 

such as Skeat would have ^ ^ Chaucer display with the Roman 
de la Rose is such as to prove that he had been previously 
employed in making his translation,” for the critic is positive that 
only Fragment A is Chaucer’s and ‘^most of the passages he 
(Chaucer) quotes are not extant in the English version.” There 
seems to me to be clear evidence that Chaucer consulted the Momaunt 
when writing the Book of the Duchess; but I do not believe that his 
use of the translation necessarily constitutes evidence that he made 
the English version himself. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


131 


stars. Skeat's source for (15) is followed immediately by 
the undoubted model of B. Duch. 405-9; and it is per- 
fectly clear that the English poet had in mind, if not in 
sight, Jean de Meung^s description of the old-time freedom 
of the golden age (RR. 9148-79). For the next idea, (17), 
Chaucer goes back to the first part of the Roman. (Notice 
that here Chaucer uses ^^povertee,’’ following RR. 57, while 
the Bomaunt has ‘^pore estat, ’’ 61.) Lines 414 and 415 
seem to have been taken over respectively from RR. 53 
{Rom. 57) and RR. 56 {Rom. 60). 

As a matter of course, the mention of trees could not be 
omitted from such a description as this, and the poet, real- 
izing that fact, begins his next paragraph : 

Hit is no need eek for to axe 

Wher ther were many grene greves, (416-417) 

This whole passage (416-442) follows the French very 
closely. Indeed, we may say that it is direct copying, al- 
though a few significant deviations must be noted. Through- 
out these lines, if we look at all carefully and compare 
them with the original, we shall see that Chaucer is inten- 
tionally exaggerating every detail. In 419-20 the poet says 
that the trees stood one from the other ^‘wel ten foot or 
twelve’’! The French original and the Romaunt both have 
five fathoms or six. Skeat remarks that Chaucer ‘4ias 
treated a toise as if it were equal to two feet. ... In his 
own translation of the Romaunt (1393), he translates toise 
by fadome.” Obviously, then, ignorance was not respon- 
sible for the change here. Chaucer is saving his ^‘fadome” 
for line 422, where he gives these wonderful trees a height 


132 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


of from two hundred and forty to three hundred feet, 
where as the French text says merely : 

Mes li rain furent lone et haut, (1377) 

and the Bomaunt: 

But they were hye and grete also, (1394) 

Chaucer says that the branches and leaves so interlaced 
that 

They were nat an inche a-sonder, (B. Duch. 425) 

while the Roman has 

Que li solaus en nesune eure 
Ne pooit a terre descendre, (1380-81) 

which the Bomaunt translates almost literally (1399). The 
enumeration of the animals in the wood is very modest in 
the Roman de la Rose, for it includes only ^^daims et 
chevrions, . . . grant plente d^escoirons . . . andconnins” 
(1383-86). The Bomaunt follows its original by mention- 
ing only ‘^does and roes . . . squirels . . . conies’’ (1401- 
1404). But what does Chaucer do? Not content with 
merely ^ ‘ many a herte and many a hinde, ’ ’ he tells us that 
the wood was full of ‘^founes, soures, bukkes, does, . . . 
and many roes,” as well as ^^squirelles” (B. Duch. 427- 
431). The rabbits are not mentioned. Finally, it is obvious 
that Guillaume de Lorris’s four lines preceding the state- 
ment of how the trees were planted: 

Que vous iroie-je notant? 

De divers arbres i ot tant, 

Que moult en seroie encombres 

Ains que les eusse nombres; (RR. 1369-72) 


CHAUOEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


133 


which are translated in the Bomaunt (1387-90), inspired 
B. Duch. 434-441, though these lines are taken over liter- 
ally from another part of the Roman (13731-36), which 
describes a situation worthy to be recalled. The Duenna 
(La Vieille) is telling Fair-Welcome (Bel-Acueil) of the 
lively life she led when she was a girl, and of the fierce con- 
tests her lovers had over her. 

If learned Algus, of all men 
The wisest in his reckoning. 

Should his ten wondrous figures bring 
To bear thereon, I doubt if well 
By multiplying he could tell 
The number of the deadly fights 
Wherein my gallants strove o’ nights. 

Right fair of face was I, etc.^ 

The exaggeration of this moral derelict is fine satire on the 
part of Jean de Meung, and Chaucer knew it ; so did every- 
one know it who was as familiar with the French poem as 
was Chaucer. But in order that there might be no mistaking 
of the passage, the English poet translated four or five lines 
literally and then adapted the reference to Argus to the 
Book of the Duchess, The thought was decidedly a clever 
one; it was introduced with a distinctly humorous intent. 
And yet Skeat says, ^^The Parlement of Foules is . . . the 
first of the Minor Poems in which touches of true humor 
occur ” ! ® 

The Parlement of Foules, Chaucer’s next dream-poem, 

4 Ellis’s translation of the Romance of the Bose, Vol. II, lines 
13486-93. 

5 Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 66. 


134 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


‘ ‘ is remarkable as being the first of the Minor Poems which 
exhibits the influence ... of Italian literature.’’ This 
piece is obviously to be associated in time with Troilus and 
Criseyde and the first draft of the Knightes Tale. The 
Hons of Fame, following close upon these three, completes 
the group which displays Chaucer reveling in his new- 
found delights of Italian poetry. 

In the Parlement of Foules he makes considerable use of 
Macrobius’s Somnium Scipionis, which he has by this time 
read for himself; of Boccaccio’s Teseide, and Alanus de 
Insulis’s Be Planctu Naturae. Direct traces of Roman de 
la Rose influence are very few, though our poet doubtless 
saw many of its lines underlying the Italian of the Teseide. 
For instance, stanza 52 of Book VII, which Chaucer fol- 
lowed in PF. 190-196, is obviously taken originally from the 
Roman (1383-90), the same passage that our poet so con- 
siderately expanded in B. Duch. 428-433.® In the Parle- 
ment, however, the ‘‘conies” are not forgotten. PF. 190- 
191, where the corresponding Italian lines read: 

Quivi senti pe’ rami dolcemente 
Quasi d’ogni maniera ucce’ cantare, 

seems directly reminiscent of PR. 665-668 or Romaunt 
669-672. The tree-list has been discussed in the preceding 
chapter. 

Of Miss Cipriani’s parallels to 129-130, 204-210, which, 
it will be seen from the table, are drawn from the last part 
of the Roman, I should throw out 21518-21 as unimportant. 

6 For other parallels between Teseide, VII, 51-64, and the 'Roman, 
see Sandras, Etude, etc., chap. iii. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


135 


These lines describe the gentle heat and odor produced 
by the wonderful carbuncle that hangs in the fountain of 
Geniuses park, while Chaucer ^s describe something entirely 
different. I believe that PF. 204-5 is merely a recollection 
carried over from B. Duch. 340-342. Moreover, line 206 
recalls rather the grass and spices of Guillaume de Lorris’s 
description; there is no corresponding line in Jean de 
Meung^s. All in all, the only details of Chaucer’s picture 
common with Jean’s are the statements that no one ever 
grows sick in this garden and that night is banished and 
perfect day rules always (11. 207-210). Lines 205-7 Chaucer 
may well have taken from Alanus.’’’ Chaucer seems to have 
forgotten that he put in this last touch about perfect 
day,” for twice later on in the poem he speaks of the sun 
going to rest: 266 and 390. finally, the resemblance 
between lines 129-130 and RR. 21449-55 and 21585-88 is 
very slight. 

One is tempted to propose the theory that Chaucer, hav- 
ing in mind Genius’s comparison of his garden with the 
Garden of Mirth that Guillaume describes: 

Car qui du biau jardin quarre 
Clos au petit guichet barre 
Ou cil amant vit la karole, 

Ou Deduit o sa gent karole 
A cel biau pare que ge devise, 

Tant par est biaus a grant devise, 

Faire voldroit comparaison, 

II feroit trop grant mesprison, etc. (21211-21218) 

'* Anticlaudianu^, Bk. I, chap. 3, 11. 20-22. See Ballerstedt, p. 41. 
The Boman has ^^Seus estres malades ne mortes, 21329, and the 
Parlement, ^^seek ne old, 207. 


136 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


decided to combine the two within the one wall and to con- 
trast passionate love, represented by ^‘Cupyde our lord” 
and his followers (11. 211-294), with natural love, or love 
for the sake of procreation, represented by the ‘‘noble god- 
desse Nature” and her charges, the birds (11. 295ff.). This 
would explain the significance of the two inscriptions “of 
fill gret difference” on the gate. Genius, it will be remem- 
bered, exhorts the barons of Love not to neglect the great 
work of man’s life; namely, “to repair the gaps made in 
the human race by the shears of Atropos.” But positive 
evidence for the theory is lacking here.® There is no proof 
at all that when writing the Parlement of Foules Chaucer 
had the Roman de la Rose before him. Indeed, even those 
passages which appear to be reminiscences are scattered and 
only vaguely recall the French poem. 

As for the descriptions of nature in the Prologue to the 
Legend of Good Women, almost all that have been attrib- 
uted to the influence of the Roman de la Rose can be traced 
back to earlier poems of Chaucer, especially the two we 
have just been considering. 

L. 125-126 is to be compared with B. Duch. 410-12, of 
which it is an echo. The “pore estat” suggests Rom, 61. 
The “atempre” (128) recalls B. Duch. 341. 

The lines cited from the Roman as the source of L. 132- 
137, viz., 22500-22509, have little or no resemblance to the 

8 Miss Cipriani writes, ‘^Jean de Meung explicitly states the moral 
he wishes to draw from the Fountain of Life. . . . Note especially 
in connection with the Parlement of Foules, RR. 21559-62, 21569-70, 
21582-85.’^ These passages have no particular significance in rela- 
tion to the English poem, but they set forth Jean de Meung ^s em- 
phasis of the necessity of procreation in the human race. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


137 


English passage, except that the Pr. sophisme (22507) is 
something like Chaucer’s sophistry e (137). I think we 
may safely dismiss this parallel. 

L. 139-140 is an echo of RR. 707-8 or Rom. 715-716. 

L. 148-168, Miss Cipriani thinks, is reminiscent of the 
Roman, and it may be that some of Chaucer’s description 
of the repentant birds was remotely suggested by part of 
the hundred-odd lines the investigator refers us to. But 
the English passage need go no farther back than the 
Parlement of Foules, or perhaps than B. Duch. 305 for the 
one line, L. 169. And as to the correlation of L. 153-159 
and RR. 10593-99, the diction and situation in the two 
passages are very little alike. 

L. 171-174 looks backward to B. Duch. 402-3 and forward 
to the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (A. 5-6). 

The beginning proper of the second book of Troilus and 
Criseyde: 

In May, that moder is of monthes glade. 

That fresshe floures, blewe, and whyte, and rede, 

Ben quick agayn, that winter dede made, (ii. 50-52) 

furnishes an example of the color enumeration that Chau- 
cer was fond of using ; as, for instance, in 

Blak, bio, grenish, swartish reed; (HP. 1647) 

And al this hous, of which I rede. 

Was made of twigges, falwe, rede 

And grene eek, and some weren whyte, (HP. 1935-37) 

Woot I not whether in whyte or rede or grene, (AA. 146) 

Por whyte and rede,” see T. i. 158; L. 42; A. 90, 1053. 

In the Roman de la Rose we find such combinations as 


138 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


^^indes et perses’’ (63) ; ‘‘blanches et vermeilles . . . 
jaunes’^ (1413-14) ; “Indes, vermaus, jaunes et bis’’ 
(21936) ; “ Jannes, vermeilles, vers et indes” (21952) ; 
“De vert, de pers on de brunete” (21929) ; “D’armes 
yndes, jaunes, on vers” (16978) ; and “Soit vert, ou 
cameline ou jauce” (14357). But, as Ballerstedt says, 
“Diese Farbenhaufung ist nocli specifiscli mittelalterlich” 
(p. 43), and we cannot trace Chaucer’s use of it to the 
Roman de la Bose. 

T. iii. 351-353 is clearly a recollection of RR. 47-54, and 
iii. 354 is a condensing of RR. 78-80, although this whole 
passage may have come second-hand through Boccaccio. In 
the Squieres Tale (F. 52-55) we have a late echo again of 
RR. 67-73. 

What are we to conclude as to the influence of the Roman 
de la Rose on Chaucer’s descriptions of nature? Certainly 
less than seventy lines of this sort in Chaucer owe their 
existence directly to the French poem. The almost servile 
copying in the Booh of the Duchess and the sudden falling 
off of Roman influence to a negligible amount in the Parle- 
ment of Foules are noteworthy. Either Chaucer had some 
ulterior motive in transferring into the 1369 poem whole 
sections from Ovid, Machault, Guillaume de Lorris, and 
Jean de Meung, or else this patchwork was serious art 
with the poet at the time it was written. Sixteen years 
later we And him emancipated from these youthful extrava- 
gances and turning more to nature and less to books for his 
descriptions. 

The remaining descriptions, other than personal, and the 
short general situations in Chaucer that have been referred 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


139 


to the Roman de la Bose, may be disposed of in a few words. 
They are the following : 


B. Duch. 807-809 

(C) 

619-20 

835-837 

(S) 

1689-91 

HF. 112-113 

(C) 

24-25 

1342-53 

(C) 

6835-40 

1652-54 

(C) 

6759-64 


Kittredge has shown that for a large part of the account 
of the sorrowing knight in the Book of the Duchess Chaucer 
went to Machault’s Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaigne. 
Miss Cipriani ^s parallel for 11. 807-809, consequently, must 
be set aside in favor of Kittredge ’s; although doubtless 
Machault got his idea of the superlative company of women 
from Guillaume de Lorris. The lines from Le Jugeynent 
are : 

Tant quhl avint qu’en une compaingnie 
.Ou il avoit mainte dame jolie 
Jeune, gentil, joieuse et envoisie. (281-283) 

See also Machault ’s Dit dii Vey^gier (ed. Hoepffner), 
155-158. 

The situation in 835-37 only resembles, in no sense trans- 
lates, RR. 1689-1691. 

The opening of the dream in the Hous of Fame — 

When it was night, to slepe I lay 
Right there as I was wont to done 
And fil on slepe wonder sone. (112-114) 

seems a reminiscence rather of the Romauni: 

I wente sone 

To bedde, as I was wont to done 
And fast I sleep (23-25) 


140 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


than of the French lines; for besides the situation, we 
have common to the two passages the rhyme done: sone, 
and the clause ‘‘as I was wont to done.’^ 

The description of the 

riche lusty place, 

That Fames halle called was, 

in HF. 1342-52 has been compared to the picture of one- 
half of Fortune’s house in the Roman de la Rose (6835-40) : 

Moult reluit d’une part, car gent 
I sunt li mur d’or et d ’argent; 

Si rest toute la coverture 
De cele meisme feture, 

Ardans de pierres precieuses 
Moult cleres et moult vertueuses. 

The only features that the two houses have in common are 
gold walls and roof, studded with jewels. But gold and 
gems in abundance are the materials out of which many a 
poet has builded an imaginary palace. Even less convincing 
is Koeppel’s equation of HF. 1342-46 with Boccaccio’s 
Amorosa Visione, IV, 9-10. 

I see no resemblance between HF. 1652-54 and RR. 6759- 
64, a parallel of Miss Cipriani’s. 

It is hard to arrive at mutually exclusive sub-classifica- 
tions of passages of personal description in Chaucer that 
have been traced to or compared with the Roman de la 
Rose; but if we treat in one section what may be called 
“generalized personal description,” and in another “par- 
ticularized personal description,” we shall be able to dis- 
cuss all the remaining parallels that fall in this chapter. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


141 


The generalized personal descriptions or descriptive 
touches equated with the French poem are these: 


(a) 

T.i. 927-928 (C) 

RR. 22560-62 

(b) 

T. ii. 756 

(C) 

10202-3 

(c) 

HF. 1710-11 

(C) 

18380-81 

id) 

1732-33' 

1761-62 

\ (C) 

12254-55 


1758-62 ■ 

(K) 

10602-5 

(e) 

1780-82 

(C) 

12270-75 

(f) 

HF. 1793-95 

(C) 

RR. 12566-72 

(g) 

A. 1999 

(S) 

Bom. 7419-20 

(h) 

C. 79-81 

(S) 

r RR. 4529-33 
I 4940-45 

(i) 

D. 1568 

(K) 

11049-50 

(3) 

2001-3 ] 
1994-95 J 

^ (K) 

10547-51 

(k) 

(D. 2004b, 
2004c) f 

- (S) 

17271-73 


(a) This expression, ‘‘They thought it was better, for 
fear of failing in one instance, to try all the chances,’’ has 
a proverbial ring to it. Pandarus twits Troilus, who is 
experiencing all the pangs of first love, with having in his 
proud days of “unattachment” characterized lovers thus. 
The lines in the Boman: 

Qu’il fait bon de tout essaier 
Por soi miex es biens esgaier 
Ausinc cum fait li bons lechierres, (22560-62) 

are so isolated from any other passages in the French poem 
that Chaucer appears to have adapted in this first book of 
Troilus that we are not justified in saying that they were 
the source of the English lines. The only evidence is the ' 


142 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


agreement of ‘‘assayen over-ar’ and ^^de tout assaier/’ 
But Chaucer uses ‘‘assaye’^ as early as the Booh of the 
Duchess.^ 

(b) A closer parallel to the English lines, T. ii. 756 — one 
which combines both ideas of jealousy and masterfulness — 
is RR. 10171-5 : 

Compains, cil fox vilains jalous . . . 

Qui si de jalousie s’emple, . . . 

Et se fait seignor de sa fame, etc., 

in which the Amis adds the moralizing touch to his vivid 
picture of the jealous husband. Neither of the two pas- 
sages from the Roman, however, — this or Miss Cipriani’s 
quotation, — contains the idea of ^ Moving novelrye.” 

(c) The best way of justifying this quotation from the 
French poem as a parallel to the lines in the Hous of Fame 
is by saying that at the time of writing his dream poem” 
Chaucer was interested in such subjects as Freewill, Neces-' 
sity, and Destiny, and that Nature’s long confession and 
discussion in the Roman de la Rose (17976-18659) was fresh 
in his mind. How well these lines (HF. 1702-1712) charac- 
terize the noble company of which the ‘^povre Persoun” 
was a member ! But surely Chaucer knew just such persons 
and might well have drawn the character of this ‘‘fifte 
route” from real life. 

(d) (e) (f) We now come to a group of passages which, 
to judge from Miss Cipriani’s citations, were due to con- 
secutive reading by Chaucer in the Roman. The French 
lines, 12254-55, 12270-75, 12566-72, are all a part of Faux- 

9 I do not understand Skeat^s glossing assayen in T. i. 928 as ‘Ho 
assail. ^ ’ 


CHAUOEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


143 


Semblant’s long confession — a section of the Roman which 
Chaucer used in part at least for his characterization of 
the Friar and the Pardoner — and are translated in Frag- 
ment C of the Romauniy 6599-6602, 6613-6622, and 6913- 
6919, respectively. But I see no particular or even general 
agreement between Chaucer’s ^^sexte and seventh routes” 
and Faux-Semblant ’s denunciation of the Begging Friars. 
There is absolutely nothing in the English lines to indicate 
that by this sixth company, who characterize themselves 
thus : 

We han don neither that ne this. 

But ydel al our lyf y-be 

are meant the Mendicant Orders. The next route” to 
seek fame is really a part of the preceding Chaucer rep- 
resents the members of it as just like the others in order to 
show the fickleness and injustice of the goddess. Koeppel’s 
parallel for HF. 1758-62 ; i. e., RR. 10602-5 : 

Si se sunt maint vante de maintes. 

Par paroles fauces et faintes, 

Dont les cors avoir ne pooient, 

Lor non a grant tort diffamoient, 

when translated literally, after all resembles the English 
only very slightly. These so-called correspondences, then 
(d, e, f), are fanciful; the French lines were clearly not 
the original of the English ; and they have little value even 
as illustrative or elucidative material. 

(g) Chaucer’s wonderful line: 

The smyler with the knyf under the cloke, (A. 1999) 
10 Cf. 1759-62 with 1796-99. 


144 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


will suffer from comparison with no parallel or source’’ 
that can be brought forward. It may or may not be a 
reminiscence of the description of Faux-Semblant, RR. 
13030-31 {Rom. 7419-20). 

(h) The Phisicien’s advice to old mistresses in charge of 
young girls to remember that they have been established as 
governesses either because they have been pure all their 
lives or because they have sinned and repented, is very 
likely an echo of Guillaume de Lorris’s character-sketch of 
La Vieille. The line, 

And knowen wel y-nough the olde daunce, (C. 79) 

seems to settle the point. I have no addition to make to 
Skeat’s note to A. 476.^^ 

(i) The commonplace statement. 

The carl spak oo thing, but he thoghte another, 

(D. 1568) 

might, as a matter of curiosity, be compared with 

car ge fesoie 

Une chose, et autre pensoie 

but surely not as a consequence of it.^^^ 

(j) and (k) are general observations made by the friar 

11 See Vol. V, p. 45. 

iia If one investigator feels justified in thinking that this idea 
was taken from the Eoman, what is to prevent another from main- 
taining, with equal show of reason, that John Cleveland was following 
Chaucer when he wrote, 

^^that splay -mouthed brother 
That declares one way and yet means another. ’ ^ — 

Euperiismus, 11. 11-13 (Poems of John Cleveland, New York, 1901). 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


145 


in the Somnours Tale on the nature of women. KoeppePs 
parallel for D. 2001-3 is a passage comparing a jealous mis- 
tress to a serpent. But in Chaucer, the friar is only preach- 
ing to the sick man to avoid strife with his wife, who is 
admitted to be ^^holy and meke.’’ As Skeat has shown, the 
original of Jean de Meung’s figure was Ovid’s Ars Ama- 
toria (II, 376). 

The particular individuals for whose description and 

4 

characterization Chaucer is thought to have been consid- 
erably indebted to the Roman de la Rose are the knight and 
the lady in the Book of the Duchess, Troilus, Pandarus, the 
Prioresse, the Frere, the Pardoner, and the Wife of Bath. 
There is no need in this place of expatiating on these 
admirable creations of Chaucer’s. They are his own not- 
withstanding the hints he received from various sources; 
for where he made flesh-and-blood people (except the knight 
and the lady in the Book of the Duchess — they were only 
dreamfolk), an inferior man, using the same details, would 
have made a catalogue or a spelling-book. We all admit at 
the start, then, that Chaucer’s character-sketching needs no 
defense. And even if a hill of sources be heaped up to 
discredit his originality, he will rise mountain-high above 
them. 

The Knight and the Lady (Book of the Duchess) 

Commenting on the black knight and the ‘‘whyte” lady 
of this poem, Legouis says: ^^La moitie des epanchements 
du dolente Chevalier est remplie d ’antitheses banales, et 
d’un pedantisme qui compromet le pathetique de sa com- 
plainte. ... La bonne duchesse doit sans doute la plupart 


146 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


de ses qualites de corps et d’ame a la Nature, mais elle en 
doit quelques-unes aussi au Dit du Vergier, a la Fontaine 
Amoureuse, au Remede de Fortune, et au Jugment du bon 
roi de Behaigne de Machault/’^^ Clearly, Chaucer had 
read extensively in Machault before writing the Booh 
of the Duchess. Kittredge has pointed out in extenso 
the indebtedness of this poem to Le Jugement, which Chau- 
cer appears to have been using from about 1. 442 on — ^the 
point where the dreamier sees the black knight. Conse- 
quently we have to be somewhat skeptical toward the fol- 
lowing parallels drawn from the Booh of the Duchess and 
the Roman de la Rose : 


B.Duch. 475-476 

(C) 

497-499 

(C) 

591-594 

(C) 

758-774 

(C) 

771-772 

(C) 

858 

(S) 

874-877 

(C) 

880-882 

(C) 

994-998 

(C) 

1024-29 

(S) 

1152-54 

(S) 

1211-20 

(C) 

1283-84 

(C) 


RR. 306-313 
200-202 
323-326 

analogous to 1891-2032 
1987 ff. 

537 

1237, 1241, 1251 
1241-1242 
J 1204-1205 
\ 18096-99 
19234-61 
2006-2007 
2403-2414 
1245 


475-6 and 497-99 are commonplaces if there ever were 
any. Miss Cipriani compares the sorrow of the knight with 
that of Tristesse (RR. 291-338) ; but it should be noticed 
that there is a fundamental difference between the two : the 


12 Geoff roy Chaucer , p. 72. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


147 


grief of Tristesse is violent; she tears her hair and her 
flesh, and deports herself in general as Criseyde deports 
herself. (T. iv. stanzas 106, 117.) The knight ^s grief is 
more restrained. Besides, it is Avarice whose hue was 
green (cf. RR. 200 and B. Duch. 497), not Tristesse. 

The rhyme smerte: herte (593-4) and the general idea 
expressed, seem to make it probable that Chaucer was 
thinking of Rom, 333-5 (not necessarily RR. 323-6). 

As for 758-774, Professor Kittredge remarks: . . 

almost every word in these lines is accounted for either by 
Machault (Le Jugement dou Roy de Belt.), vss. 261-73 or 
vss. 125-133.’’^^ This statement will dispose of B. Duch. 
771-772, of course, as that couplet is included in the longer 
passage. 

We have already seen that golden hair was the conven- 
tional thing for beautiful ladies to have ; hence line 858 is a 
commonplace. But 857-858 taken together probably had as 
their source Le Jug. (302-3), not the Roman. 

874-77, 880-882, 994-998 are no more like the lines quoted 
from the Roman than lines from a dozen other poems 
describing gentleness, modesty, and wisdom in a mistress. 
Moreover, 874-877 can be paralleled pretty closely with 
Le Jug.y 328-330. I doubt not that Machault would furnish 
equivalents for the other two passages. 

For the sending of lovers on expeditions, by way of 
proving them, which was in accordance with the manners 
of the times, Skeat refers us to RR. 19234-61. He must 
have misprinted the reference, however, for there is noth- 
ing in this passage even remotely to suggest B. Duch. 1024- 

13 In Mod. Thil.y April, 1910, p. 468. 


148 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


29. If Chaucer needed a literary precedent for this idea, 
he could have found it in Machault’s Dit du Lion. 

Skeat’s parallel to 1152-54 is pertinent; the English 
lines seem to be reminiscent of the French, even though the 
two situations are quite different. 

1211-1220 shows the god of Love’s prophecy about the 
confusion of lovers when they meet their mistresses (RR. 
2403-14) come true. Chaucer, when writing his lines, may 
have been recalling what was said in the French poem about 
changing color, etc., but his application of it to the case in 
hand was well made. The poet uses nearly the same words 
to describe Troilus’s situation when he first meets Criseyde 
(T. iii. 92-98). Of course, blushing, turning pale, stammer- 
ing, are characteristics of all true lovers in medieval poetry, 
and those of other times as well ! 

As for the last couplet, 1283-84, the resemblance to the 
French lines is not worth consideration. There is no indi- 
cation of reminiscence of the Roman or of dependence on it. 

B. Duch. 871-2 is not unlike Rom. 543-4 (RR. 531) in 
phraseology : 

That the goddesse, dame Nature, 

Had made hem [i.e. eyen] opene by mesure. (B.D.) 

And by mesure large were 

The opening of her ijen clere. (Rom.) 

— a resemblance hitherto unrecorded. 

Troilus and Criseyde, in many ways Chaucer ^s master- 
piece — certainly his finest single poem — is said by Miss 
Cipriani to exhibit, more than any other work of our poet, 
traces of Roman de la Rose influence ; but rather the influ- 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


149 


ence of Jean de Meung than that of Guillaume de Lorris. 
This poem may have been written between 1382 and 1384, 
but possibly before the Hous of Fame, and surely before 
the Legend of Good Women. It is almost the center of a 
very significant group of pieces — the rest of them being 
dream-poems, but all displaying a more or less considerable 
influence from the Italian, as has been said. 

By far the larger part of Chaucer’s direct borrowings 
from the Roman de la Rose in the Troilus are of the nature 
of proverbs or material for philosophical digressions. But 
the three principal characters have been said to owe a few 
features to the French poem, — Pandarus and Troilus more 
than Criseyde, perhaps. 

It has not been shown hitherto, I believe, how close an 
agreement there is between many of Troilus ’s traits and the 
characteristics of the ideal lover as set forth in the first 
part of the Roman de la Rose. How subtly, how insinu- 
atingly, how unconsciously almost, but withal how nat- 
urally, Chaucer has applied certain conventional details, 
cannot be appreciated by reading only single lines, but can 
be seen in a rough general way by examining the references 
given below if one looks at them from the point of view of 
the place of their appearance in the poem. Throughout the 
story these hints are scattered in such a masterly Avay that 
the whole character of the hero unfolds itself as quietly, as 
smoothly, as imperceptibly, as the most finished artist could 
make it unfold. 

It will be remembered that the god of Love in the French 
poem holds with the lover a long conversation of nearly 
seven hundred lines (2082-2776), in which he sets forth his 


150 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


laws that must be obeyed, enumerates the toils and griefs 
which a lover must undergo, and finally bestows on the 
lover three gifts which are to help him obtain his desire. 

I have listed below the various laws, pains and tortures, 
and gifts that the god of Love speaks of, and have cited 
lines from Chaucer’s poem which show how Troilus fulfils 
practically all the requirements which are codified, as it 
were, in Guillaume de Lorris’s ar't d’ amors. The italicized 
references are to lines that Chaucer could have taken, and 
doubtless did take, from Boccaccio’s Filostraio; but many 
of these were probably due originally to the Roman de la 
Rose, 

The Eleven Commandments of Love, with Parallels from 

Troilus, 

(1) Beware of villainy; villains will not be received 
into the service of Love. RR. 2087-2092 (Rom. 2175-2180). 

T. i. 901-3, 1030-33; ii. 840 ; Hi, 1787, 1796-99. 

(2) Be courteous toward all persons great or small. 
RR. 2109-2111 (Rom. 2213-15). 

T. i. 1076-78; ii. 187-89, 204-207, 160; iii. 1790, 1800-03, 

(3) Watch thy lips well that they speak no ribaldry or 
unbecoming word. RR. 2119-2126 (Rom. 2223-28). 

T. iii. 1786, 1789, [See also A. 70-72, descriptive of the 
Knight.] 

(4) Serve women; let no one speak calumny against 
them. RR. 2127-34 (Rom. 2229-38). 

T. i. 817-19 ; V. 1075-77. 

(5) Beware of pride, which is both foolish and sinful; 
it has nothing in common with love. RR. 2135-42 (Rom. 
2239-46). 

T. i. 1084; iii. 1801, 1805, 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


151 


(6) Dress as well as your purse will allow, but do not 
dress beyond your means. RR. 2152-64, 2168 (Rom. 2255- 
70, 2274). 

T. ii. 624-25, 635-37; m. 1719, 

(7) Remember that a gay heart inspireth love. RR. 
2185-94 (Rom. 2289-96). 

T. i. 704-7, 816-17, 856, 890-96, 1072; Hi. 1726^29. 

(8) Practise games and athletics; they bring a man 
attention and renown. RR. 2199-2212 (Rom. 2305-16). 

T. i. 1074 ; ii. 185-86, 197-203 ; Hi. 1779-81, 1776-78. 

(9) If you can sing well, do not hesitate to sing when 
called upon to do so. Make songs and complaints to move 
your lady to pity. RR. 2213-20 (Rom. 2317-28). 

T. ii. 1499-1503; iii. 1254-74, 1716-18, 1743 ff. (The 
song Troilus sings is from Boethius.) 

(10) Avoid the name of miser; lovers should be open- 
handed and generous. RR. 2221-25 (Rom. 2329-33). 

T. i. 958, 1080; iii. 1718, 1719. 

(11) In order to be true to love, you must set your 
heart whole in one place. RR. 2250-60 (Rom. 2361-72). 

T. i. 537, 960-62 ; iii. 103, 133, 134-47, 1298 ; iv. 1654-57 ; 
V. 574, 1695-1701. 

The toils and griefs a lover has to undergo, as the god of 

Love explains them to the lover. 

(1) The lover must cloke his adventures from the eyes 
of other men; he must make his moan alone. RR. 2281-85 
(Rom. 2391-96). 

T. i. 743-45, 612-13, 806 ; iii. 428-34. 

(2) The physical state of the lover — now hot, now cold; 
now pale, now blushing ; now self-forgetful and dumb, now 
given to much sighing. RR. 2286-2310 (Rom. 2397-2418). 

Troilus : i. 441 ; iii. 94-95. 

Pandarus affected : ii. 60. 


152 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Criseyde: ii. 645, 652, 698, 809-11 (pointed out by C.)? 
1256 ; iii. 1569-70. 

(3) The lover will feel the misery of absence. RR. 
2311-23 (Rom. 2419-33). 

T. iv. 1699-1701 ; v. 217-245, 295-332. 

(4) Sight of the loved one is the only thing that satis- 
fies; it is a way of lovers to be drawn closer into the fire. 
RR. 2343-70 (Rom. 2453-78). 

T. i. 442-46, 447-48; ii. 537-39. 

(5) The thought of neglected opportunities will be 
bitter when you are away from your love; you will curse 
yourself for having stood as dumb as stone or wood. RR. 
2371-84, 2423-28 (Rom. 2480-98, 2545-48). 

T. V. 736-43, 744-49. 

(6) A lover’s confusion at the sudden sight of his love. 
RR. 2403-14 (Rom. 2523-37). 

T. i. 295-301; ii. 652-58; iii. 80-84 (pointed out by C.).^^^ 

(7) A lover’s restlessness and sleeplessness at night. 
RR. 2433-42 (Rom. 2553-2564). 

T. iii. 1583-84, 1534-40; v. 222-24, 

Pandarus tortured by love, ii. 57-63. 

(8) The lover’s further torments, for which he would 
feel richly rewarded by only one kiss. RR. 2489-92 (Rom. 
2609-12). 

T. i. 818-819, 810-12. 

(9) The lover’s anxiety for morning to come. RR. 
2504-18 (Rom. 2627-40). 

(10) Sometimes he gets up before dawn, draws on his 
shoes, and through the hail and snow goes to his love’s 
house. RR. 2520-43 (Rom. 2645-70). 

The setting of the scene in T. iii. 547-973 has general 

13a Miss Cipriani also couples with these lines the scene of Troilus 
lying in bed and rehearsing the speech he is going to make to Criseyde, 
iii. 50-56. This admirable situation is Chaucer ^s own; there is no 
hint of it in either the Filostrato or the Boman de la Bose, 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


153 


resemblances to the situation described here in the Roman, 
Compare also T. iii. 786-88, 792-98; v, 519-553, 

Love’s three gifts to the lover, 

(1) Sweet-Thoughts, that assuages the pain of lovers by 
bringing before their minds their mistresses and all their 
charms. RR. 2655-82 (Rom. 2791-2824). 

T, Hi, 1541-44, 1548-54; v, 426-476, 

(2) Sweet-Speech, or Soft-Speech, which brings ease to 
love-smitten knights and ladies. To hear the object of one’s 
passion praised is refreshing. It lessens the pain and care 
to talk over secretly with some one, affairs of the heart. 
RR. 2683-97 (Rom. 2825-55). 

T, i, 883-89; iii. 1646-66; 1737-42; v. 515-16, 

(3) Sweet-Looks, which cannot ease a lover’s heart if 
he is far away from his love. Therefore every lover should 
press always to be in the place where he may see his lady. 
RR. 2729-2762 (Rom. 2893-2934). 

T. i. 442-46. Cf. esp. Rom. 2899-2900 with i. 445-46: 

Wherefore thou prese alwey to be 
In place, where thou mayst hir se. 

For-thy ful ofte, his hote fyr to cese, 

To seen hir goodly look he gan to prese ; 

Finally, Love advises the Lover to get above all a trusty 
friend and to show him all his ^^wele and wo,” joy and 
pain. ‘^Get one,” he says, ‘^who can keep thy counsel. If 
the friend is one who has suffered the pains of love, all the 
better; he will be a good one to give advice. And he will 
show thee in turn his whole heart.” RR. 2698-2729 (Rom. 
2856-92). 

Pandarus fulfils all these requirements: he is faithful 
to the last, he is always ready night or day to serve Troilus, 
whom he loves as a brother and even calls ^‘Brother.” Cf, 


154 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


i. 586-95, 625-30, 646-51, 666-69, 675-76, 711-14, 771-73, 
1051-54, 1058-60, 1065-71 ; ii. 57-63. 

Miss Cipriani compares T. i. 715-16 with HR. 2719-20. 

The kind of adaption of materials that we find in the 
Troilus is very different from that in the Boole of the 
Duchess; so different and so superior, in fact, that we 
wonder what magic course in technic Chaucer took during 
the thirteen or fourteen years that separated the poems. 
Where our poet formerly took sections of whole cloth, he 
now takes threads and weaves them into his web so subtly 
that it is almost impossible to detect them and trace them. 
We have compared the Booh of the Duchess to a patch- 
work quilt; we may compare Troilus and Criseyde to a 
piece of changeable silk, displaying now this color, now 
that, according to the angle from which it is examined. 
Into the warp of Boccaccio, Chaucer, here the master- 
workman, has woven the woof of Boethius, Benoit, Guido 
della Colonna, Guillaume de Lorris, and Jean de Meung 
and himself. 

A few other parallels remain to be considered in this 
place : 


(a) T.ii. 722-723 (C) 

(b) T. iii. 1544-46 (C) 

(c) T.v. 551-552 (S) 

(d) T.v. 1222 (S) 


RR. 8488-89, 10600-601 
2247-50 
2251 
Rom. 368. 


(a) I see absolutely no correspondence of thought 
between the English and the French lines. Criseyde ’s 
soliloquy on the character of Troilus is rather reminiscent 
of some of the many lines of description of true lovers that 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 155 

Chaucer read in Machaiilt, if, indeed, he needed any liter- 
ary origin for his remarks.^^ But it should be noted that 
Criseyde’s inventory is very matter of fact; she selects 
qualities to the point. It is futile to look for sources of 
lines that are the most natural in the world. 

(b) The resemblance between T. hi. 1544-46 and RR. 
2247-49, can be seen to be very slight by comparing the 
English lines with the Romaunt 2357-60, which is a fairly 
close translation of the French. 

(c) It is not impossible that Troilus’s kissing the cold 
doors of Criseyde’s house was suggested by 


(d) What Skeat is comparing here is simply the phrase 
‘‘by potente.’’ RR. 360 has potance. La Vieille^s descrip- 
tion of herself also includes the phrase a potence: 


Pandarus is peculiarly Chaucer ^s own creation, and I 
think we may safely say that the poet owed nothing essen- 
tial for this character, except a few proverbs, to the Lover ’s 
Amis, to whom Jean de Meung devotes so many lines. As 
we have seen, Pandarus fulfils all the requirements which 
the god of Love said a faithful friend should meet. The 
Amis of Jean is certainly a striking departure from what 
Guillaume de Lorris must have had in mind. There are 
some general resemblances between Pandarus and Reason, 


Au departir la porte baise, (RR. 2550) 


Mon tens jolis est tons ales, 
Poi me porrai mes soustenir 
Fors a baston ou a potence. 


(13683) 

(13685) 


14 Compare, for example, Le Jug, dou Boy de Beh., 135ff., etc. 


156 CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 

though there is this fundamental difference, of course: 
Pandarus does all he can to assist Troilus in his love affair, 
while Reason does her best to turn the Lover from his. 
Both Pandarus and Reason, however, laugh at their 
charges” now and then, and both discuss fortune. Both, 
too, are fond of ^^ensamples” and proverbs. That Chaucer 
associated Pandarus with Reason may be seen from the fol- 
lowing correspondence of setting and diction between T. iv. 
432-434 and RR. 5361-5362 (a resemblance not recorded 
hitherto, I believe). 

But Troilus, that neigh for sorwe deyde, 

Tok litel hede of al that ever he mente ; 

Oon ere it herde, at other out it wente. 

Par une des oreilles giete 
Quanque raison en Pautre boute. 

For the situation in the French poem, see the translation 
in the Romauni, 5135-5154. Again, Pandarus may have 
some of the characteristics of Nature. 

Miss Cipriani has made a good deal of the satiric side of 
Pandarus ; but it is a side that I fail to see emphasized by 
Chaucer. It is true that Pandarus uses raillery and banter 
to get Troilus to tell him his troubles; he is worldly and 
somewhat cynical; but after all he is essentially faithful, 
he undoubtedly has a real affection for Criseyde, and is 
desirous only that the two young people shall be happy. 
He is always good-natured, and his remarks, witty as they 
can be, are ever without a sting. Altogether, there is no 
one character in the Roman de la Rose that approaches 
him. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


157 


We shall see in the next chapter the relationship between 
Criseyde and Keason. We may note here in passing that 
Chaucer’s constant emphasis of what is Criseyde ’s most 
prominent trait, perhaps, — her fear lest people will talk 
about her, her extreme caution against the poison of wag- 
ging tongues — may have been suggested in part by what is 
said in the Roman de la Bose of the villain Male-Bouche, 
a resemblance hitherto unrecorded, I believe. Compare, for 
instance, ii. 729-732, 763, 799-805; iii. 274-287; iv. 1555- 
1582; V. 1058-1064 with RR. 8085-8128, 13117-13186, etc. 
The similarities are for the most part only general, but they 
are significant. 

Of the immortal group of Canterbury pilgrims, the five 
whose characters Chaucer derived in part from details in 
the Roman de la Rose are among the most interesting. The 
poet has not only given us full-length portraits of the 
Squyer, the Prioresse, the Prere, the Wife of Bath, and the 
Pardoner, but he has made each one of them tell a story 
for us. So we have both external and internal evidence of 
what these persons were. 

The character of the ‘^yong Squyer” has been honored 
by having a famous living model pointed out for him — no 
less a person than Chaucer himself! M. Legouis writes: 
‘‘Aussi lorsque le page se mue en soldat et, en novembre 
1359, s’en va faire campagne en France, soit dans la suite 
du due de Clarence, soit dans celle du roi lui-meme, est-il 
tent ant de le voir tres semblable au jeune ecuyer-poete 
qu’il a peint dans son Pelerinage, avec ses boucles frisees 
comme si on les avait mises en papillotes, . . . tout brode 
comme une prairie de fleurs rouges et blanches, chantant et 


158 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


flutant tout le long jour, habile a faire des chansons et a 
les ecrire. Tons les deux n^avaient-ils pas alors vingt ans 
d’age, n’etaient-ils pas ‘‘frais comme le mois de maiT^ 
L’un et Tautre ne chevaucherent-ils pas pareillement a 
travers I’Artois et la Picardie? Et pourquoi, comme 
PEcuyer, Chaucer n’aurait-il pas fait prouesse lui aussi 
pour obtenir les graces de sa dame ? Tenons compte de ce 
quhl entre de convention et de reminiscences litteraires 
dans le portrait de PEcuyer; — plusieurs de ses traits vien- 
nent de Guillaume de Lorris {Roman de la Rose, v. 2185- 
2221, Edit. Pr. Michel. Le rapprochment, que je sache, 
n’a pas ete signale) et, a travers Lorris, d’Ovide {De Arte 
Amandif lib. I. v. 595) ; — mais il est significatif que Chaucer 
soit seul a lui attribuer le don de poesie. Les coincidences 
sont telles qu’en peignant son Ecuyer, il est inimaginable 
que le poete n’ait pas fait un retour sur lui-meme.’’ 
Before I read Legouis’s admirable little volume on Chau- 
cer, I had noted in my own mind some of the similarities 
between the Squyer and the ideal lover as Guillaume de 
Lorris portrays him in the first part of the Roman. The 
young son of the Knight recalls to us, too, the picture of 
the merry loving Troilus, as he is represented at the end 
of Book iii: 

In suffisaunce, in blisse, and in singinges. 

This Troilus gan al his lyf to lede; 

He spendeth, justeth, maketh festeyinges ; 

He yeveth frely ofte, and chaungeth wede ; 

And held aboute him alway, out of drede, 

A world of folk, as cam him wel of kinde. 

The fressheste and the beste he coude finde ; 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


159 


That swiche a vois was of him and a stevene 
Thorugh-out the world, of honor and largesse, 
That it up rong un-to the yate of hevene. 

And, as in love, he was in swich gladnesse. 

That in his herte he demede, as I gesse. 

That there nis lovere in this world at ese 
So wel as he, and thus gan love him plese. 

(iii. 1716-1729) 

And most of love and vertu was his speeche. 

And in despit hadde alle wrecchednesse ; 

(iii. 1786-87) 

Benigne he was to eche in general, (iii. 1802). 

Although we may hesitate to agree with M. Legouis’s 
ingenious conjecture about the autobiographical echoes in 
what Chaucer says of the Squyer, we may reasonably admit 
that not a few strokes in the word-picture of this young 
gallant are distinctly reminiscences of the Roman de la 
Rose and Chaucer’s earlier work. It will be remembered 
that the Frankeleyn, who admires the Squyer very much, 
introduces into his own story a squire who closely resem- 
bles Chaucer ’s.^^ 

Sandras recorded the similarity between 

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede 
A1 ful of fresshe floures, whyte and rede ; 

and the description of the god of Love, RR. 888-890. Skeat 
refers us to the English translation : 

His garnement was everydel 
Y-portreyd and y-wrought with floures, 

By dyvers medling of coloures. (Rom. 896-898) 

15 Compare the Frankeleyns Tale, (F) 925ff. 


160 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


We might also add that the line 

He was as fresh as is the month of May, 

charming and picturesque as it is, was a commonplace not 
only with Chaucer hut also with trouvere poets.^^^ 

The last two lines of the portrait of the Squyer : 

Curteys he was, lowly and servisable, 

And carf biforn his fader at the table, (99-100) 

suggest a comparison with RR. 14336-8 : 

Et quant ele iert a table assise. 

Face, shl puet, a tons servise, 

Devant les autres doit taillier. 

I admit that it was the custom of squires to carve at the 
table, and that the parallel I have indicated here may be 
only a coincidence. As justification for citing the French 
lines, however, I will merely call attention to the fact that 
they occur just before the famous description which Chau- 
cer incorporated only thirty lines further on into his 
picture of the Prioresse. 

The Prioresse and the Wife of Bath are the only women 
in the company whom Chaucer has minutely characterized. 
We cannot conceive of two individuals more unlike than 
these two: the Prioresse modest, dainty, tender-hearted, 
treated with respect by all; the Wife of Bath boisterous, 
coarse, given to much talking, a good deal of a scold, joked 
at by the Friar and others of the group. And Chaucer 
with consummate skill has played a supreme joke on Jean 

15a Tor references in Chaucer, see L. 613; A. 1037, 1510-11; E. 
1747-8; F. 281, 927-8. 


CHAUCEK AND THE KOMAN DE LA EOSE 


161 


de Meung. For from the very section in which La Vieille 
discloses to Bel-Acneil the wiles used by some women to 
entrap men and describes the various aids for waning 
beauty Chaucer has adapted material for eight lines of his 
description of the wdnsome Prioresse. (Or perhaps the 
joke is on the Prioresse herself.) Tyrwhitt first pointed out 
the indebtedness of A. 127-135 to RR. 14336-37, 14349-62, 
14366-73. It is interesting to compare Ellis’s translation of 
RR. 14349-373 with Chaucer’s lines: 

’Tis well she take especial care 
That in the sauce her fingers ne ’er 
She dip beyond the joint, nor soil 
Her lips with garlick, sops, or oil. 

Nor heap up gobbets and then charge 
Her mouth with pieces overlarge. 

And only with the finger point 
Should touch the bit she’d fain anoint 
With sauce, white, yellow, brown, or green. 

And lift it towards her mouth between 
Finger and thumb with care and skill. 

That she no sauce or morsel spill 
About her breast-cloth. 

Then her cup 

She should so gracefully lift up 
Toward her mouth that not a gout 
By any chance doth fall about 
Her vesture, or for glutton rude. 

By such unseemly habitude, 

Might she be deemed. 

Nor should she set 
Lips to her cup while food is yet 
Within her mouth. 

And first should she 


162 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Her upper lip wipe delicately 

Lest having drunk, a grease-formed groat 

Were seen upon the wine to float. 

(11. 14117-14140) 

‘ ‘ Many of the remarks concerning the Frere, ’ ’ says Skeat, 
^‘are ultimately due to the Roman de la Rose, See Romaunt 
of the Rose 6161-7698.”^^ These lines in the French poem, 
it is perhaps needless to repeat, form part of Faux- 
Semhlant’s confession before the god of Love, a speech 
much too long for analysis here. In some respects the Par- 
doner’s character owes more to the Roman de la Rose than 
the Friar’s, a relationship that has not been pointed out 
hitherto, so far as I am aware. On reading the Pardoner’s 
Prologue, we are immediately struck with many resem- 
blances it bears to Faux-Semblant’s self -revelation. Like 
the harangue in the French poem, what the Pardoner has 
to say takes the form of a confession, and the relation of 
his personal experiences, impudent, intimate, disgusting, is 
not a whit overdrawn, as Jusserand says. The Friar makes 
no confession; but Chaucer makes one for him and attrib- 
utes to him some of the traits that Faux-Semblant so shame- 
lessly boasts are his own. 

To be more specific: Faux-Semblant says that he loves 
good dishes and wine, and that although he preaches 
poverty, his bags overflow with coin, and he never makes 
friends with any poor man (RR. 12154-75). For ^‘poor 
man” Chaucer substitutes ^ bazars.” The Frere knew all 

16 Langlois (p. 163-164) cites a passage very similar to this one 
from the Clef Amours, which was undoubtedly Jean de Meung^s 
immediate source. 

17 Vol. V, p. 25. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


163 


the taverns and inn-keepers, had no acquaintance with 
lepers, but dealt with the rich, with merchants. Like Faux- 
Semblant, too, he did not go about as a poor clerk in 
thread-bare coat. 

But he was lyk a maister or a pope. 

But the Frere and the Pardoner, unlike their French pro- 
totype, do not object to have dealings with poor people. Of 
the first Chaucer says : 

For tho a widwe hadde noght a sho. 

So plesaunt was his principio/^ 

Yet would he have a ferthing, er he wente. (A. 253-55) 

And as for the Pardoner — 

But with these relikes, whan that he fond 
A povre person dwelling up-on lond. 

Up-on a day he gat him more moneye 

Than that the person gat in monthes tweye. (A. 701-4) 

And in his own Prologue this noble ecclesiaste ’ ’ declares, 

I wol have money, wolle, chese, and whete. 

And were it yeven of the povrest page. 

Or of the povrest widwe in a village, 

A1 sholde hir children starven for famyne. (C. 448-451) 

The Pardoner is without doubt one of the most despicable 
wretches in literature. And the Frere is a close second, 
although Huberd has external graces to make him more 
endurable than the slovenly, repulsive Pardoner. But how 
closely this precious pair was associated together in the 
mind of Chaucer may be indicated, perhaps, by the fact 


164 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


that the poet divided one of Faux-Semblant’s couplets 
between them: 

En aquerre est toute m ’entente, 

Miex vaut mes porchas que ma rente, (RR. 12492-93) 

The Pardoner says of himself. 

For my entente is nat but for to winne, (C. 402) 

and Chaucer says of the Frere, 

His purchas was wel bettre than his rente. (A. 256) 

while the Frere himself (through Chaucer) puts a similar 
expression into the mouth of the fiend : 

My purchase is th’ effect of al my rente. (D. 1451) 
As Faux-Semblant says that he lives 

Sans james de mains traveillier, (RR. 12504) 
so the Pardoner asserts, 

I wol not do no labour with myn hondes. (C. 444) 

a direct imitation which seems hitherto to have been over- 
looked. 

Like Faux-Semblant, too, the Pardoner preaches against 
avarice, ^ ^ Radix malorum est Cupiditas. ’ ’ But, ^ ^ trowe ye 
that he wol live in povert wilfully He may well say 
with the other, ‘^Mes ge sui ypocrits,” 12163. The Frere ’s 
specialty of shriving women was anticipated by Faux-Sem- 
blant, RR. 12515 ff., a resemblance not hitherto recorded. 
Skeat cites as a parallel to the Somnour’s contemptuous 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


165 


allusion to the dwelling-place of friars D. 1690-91, a couplet 
from the Romaunt: 7577-78, to which the corresponding 
line in the French text is 13186. But the phrase seems to 
have been proverbial.^® 

In these two characters of the Pardoner and the Prere, 
then, so much alike and yet so well differentiated in per- 
sonality, Chaucer has mirrored not a little of Jean de 
Meung’s arch-impostor. The friar of whom the Somnour 
tells a story, Chaucer paints as no different from the 
Canterbury pilgrim Hubert. Skeat has recorded the simi- 
larity of situation between D. 2094-98 and Romaunt 6390-98 
(RR. 12019 ff.). But the English poet has also reflected 
much of the actual life and conditions of his day, and it is 
easy to over-estimate his literary borrowings. Chaucer’s 
clerics are real persons, and they have deflnite occupations. 
We do not know what Faux-Semblant is except that he is 
a very shadowy personification of some sort of ecclesiastic. 
There is throughout a certain unreality and inconsistency 
about him. For instance, his fervent arraignment of the 
Mendicant Friars — Jean de Meung talking! To say that 
Faux-Semblant is less villainous than the Frere and the 
Pardoner is not to praise him ; he antagonizes us less because 
he is less actual, less human. Chaucer’s triumph in the Can- 
terbury Tales is that he does not intrude himself upon his 
characters. He gives us their stories, their digressions, as 
he conceived that the narrators conceived them. This 
method often leaves us in doubt as to what his own 

isRuteheuf, in his Sainte Marie VEgiptianne, 11. 308-9, writes: 

Dame, je qui sui mise el puis 

D^enfer par ma grant mesprison, etc. 


166 CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 

feelings were ; but on the Pardoner and the Frere, we may 
safely say, I think, that Chaucer wasted no sympathy or 
affection. 

The character of the Wife of Bath has been made the 
subject of a somewhat general but informing study by AVill- 
iam E. Mead, to some of whose remarks we shall have occa- 
sion to refer. But it is not necessary to go over the whole 
ground again, interesting as the Wife of Bath is at all 
times. The discussion here will take the form largely of 
a summary of what has been said about Chaucer ^s use of 
the Roman de la Rose in the representation of this ‘Svorthy 
woman. 

Mead writes in part: ‘‘So peculiarly alive is (the 

Wyf of Bath) that she seems almost to be fashioned 
after a living model, and this may be to some extent true. 
Yet closer study shows that in this, as in other cases, Chau- 
cer borrowed all the hints he could get, and that, as usual, 
he turned to the Roman de la Rose. In this particular 
instance his indebtedness to the French poem is, I think, 
somewhat larger than has been generally recognized. I 
am inclined to disagree with this last statement, for on 
examination of the criticism up to and including KoeppePs 
article in Anglia, XIA^, we find that no less than thirty 
parallels to as many passages in the AYife’s Prologue, 
besides two in the General Prologue, had been pointed out 
from the Roman de la Rose. Lounsbury had remarked 
that “Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of three 
works (i. e., Le Eoman de la Kose, A^alerius ad Bufinum, 

The Frologue of the Wife of Bathes Tale, by \Villiani E. Mead, 
Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 1901, p. 391. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


167 


and Hieronymus contra louinianum) upon the subject of 
Matrimony, into his Wife of Bathes Prologue and the 
Merchantes Tale.’’^® 

It may have been Tyrwhitt’s general statement that 
called forth Mead’s remark about the underestimate usually 
made of Jean de Meung’s influence on this character. But 
I do not think that the influence has been underestimated ; 
at least it has not been under-stated. Skeat many times 
has emphasized the fact that the Wife is modeled largely 
on La Vieille. 

Later on in his article, after he has compared the 
Wife with Jean’s duenna. Mead writes, Evidently, then, 
although Chaucer did not attempt to copy the portrait 
of La Vieille as a whole, he took from her the general 
suggestion for the outlines of the Wife of Bath. But he 
modifled the flgure of La Vieille by making her younger 
and more vigorous, by giving her as keen an interest in 
life as she ever had, by representing her as still ready 
for matrimony whenever opportunity should offer. (Prol. 
44-45.) Furthermore, Chaucer transformed the somewhat 
morose and broken-spirited old woman, entirely out of sym- 
pathy with life, into a witty and frisky shrew — good- 
natured in a way, but still a shrew. 

This investigator, however, does not emphasize the fact 
that the English poet drew from the long discourse of the 
Amis nearly as much as he drew from the duenna’s con- 
fession. 

A list of the parallels already discovered between the 

20 Studies, II, 292. 

21 Op. cit., 394-5. 


168 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Wife of Bathes personality and certain features in tlie 
French poem may prove instructive, for from it one can 
see at a glance what parts of the Roman Chaucer seems to 
have been using here. Consequently, I enumerate below 
such correspondences as may be reasonably said to set forth 
the Wife’s character. (I omit, of course, parallels that ai*e 
discussed elsewhere in this book.) 


A. 

461 

( S ) RR. 13722 


476 

(S) 

4545 

D. 

1-3 

(K) 

13743-45 


207-210 

(K) 

14210-14 


227-228 

(S) 

19071-72 


229-230 

(K) 

10664-65 


250-252 

(K) 

9331-34 


248-254 

(K) 

9328-49 


257 ff. 

(K) 

9340-49 


263-266 

(K) 

9348-53 


293-294 

(S) 

14651 


333-336 

(K) 

8161-66 


357-361 

(K) 

f 15326-29 
15338-39 


393-396 

(S) 

14775-85 

D. 

407-410 

(S) 

9839-44 


467-468 

(S) 

14393-94 


469-473 

(K) 

' 13873-79 
13865-66 


503-514 

(K) 

15420-35 


522-524 

(K) 

14648-51 


552-554 

(K) 

9777-78 


555-558 

(S) 

14464-69 


572-574 

(S) 

14091-96 


575 

(K) 

14633 


623-24 

(K) 

9265 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


169 


662 

(K) 

10726 

929-930 

(S) 

10692-10708 

950 

(K) 

20152 


(S) 

17284-17312 

961-963 

(K) 

17458-67 

968 

(K) 

17304-5 


To this list we may add Mead’s parallels: D. 534 ff. and 
ER. 17284-17301. We are also asked to compare RE. 9276- 
9282, 9310-9357, 9416-9437, though we are not told with 
what to compare these passages in particular. 

Upon examination of the correspondences tabulated 
above, we may safely say that : 

D. 1-2 are imitated fairly closely from the French lines, 
but are given a new turn with line 3. 

207-210 were doubtless inspired by the lines noted. The 
rhyme plese: ese (213-214) recalls the rhyme plaise: 
mesaise (RR. 14212-13). 

227-228 are almost a literal translation of the French. 

229 is an echo of the Amis’s excluding statement after 
he has told the lover that women are as slippery as eels. 
We might also compare Faux-Semblant’s similar remark, 
11783-89, which he prefixes to his tirade against religious 
pretenders. 

250-256 were clearly modeled on the description of the 
angry, jealous husband whom the Amis depicts in the 
Roman, 

257 ff. was probably taken from Theophrastus. See 
Skeat, V. 298. There is little resemblance to the Roman. 

293-294, as Skeat points out, are taken from Theophras- 
tus. I do not understand the critic’s reference to the 


170 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Romany 14651. There is no resemblance between the Eng- 
lish lines and 

Tant le va Ten plus viltoiant. 

333-336 and 357-361 are without doubt imitated from the 
French passages cited. 

393-396 may have been suggested by the parallel indi- 
cated. 

The next three parallels are very close, i. e., 407-410, 467- 
468, 469-473. 

503-514 have strong resemblances to RR. 15420-35, though 
I should hardly call the passages ^ ‘ parallel, ’ ^ as Skeat 
calls them. 

The next two parallels are close. Indeed, with the whole 
passage, D. 516-522, we might compare RR. 14644-55. In 
connection with 558, where the wife says that she used to 
go to ^‘pleyes of miracles’’ in order to attract attention, we 
might note that Ovid says that above all, the playhouse is 
the place to go to see beautiful women : 

Sed tu praecipue curvis venare theatris, 

{Ars Amat. I, 89) 

572-574, 575, and 662 are almost translations of the 
French lines. Skeat, following Koeppel, quotes RR. 9265 
in a note to D. 624, without comment. In the absence of 
any evidence except the English short or long” and the 
French ‘^cors ou Ions,” it cannot be maintained that the 
French lines were the original of the English. 

929-930 may have been inspired by the dozen and a half 
lines in the Roman, but not necessarily. 

950 is clearly a translation from the French. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


171 


961-963 and 968 represent the particular application by 
Chaucer of general statements taken from the Roman. 

Every lover of Chaucer ^s characters has doubtless at one 
time or another compared the Wife of Bath with Pandarus ; 
and there is much to justify the comparison. Pandarus — 
something of a male duenna — is a man who has had experi- 
ence in love, though Chaucer has gallantly made him 
refrain from telling of ‘Svo in mariage.’^ But that the 
poet associated these two characters and had Pandarus in 
mind while describing the Wife, is suggested by the phrase 
he uses to characterize each : 

But Pandarus, that wel coude eche a del 

The olde daunce, and every poynt therinne, (T. in. 694-5) 

Of remedyes of love she knew perchaunce. 

For she could of that art the olde daunce. (A. 475-76) 

The original of the phrase ^Hhe old daunce’’ appears in 
Guillaume de Lorris’s description of La Yieille, RR. 4545. 
Pandarus, however, is of a much finer grain than the Wife ; 
besides, he has none of her shrewish nature. He has had 
several love affairs, as has been said ; and as for the Wife — 

Housbondes at chirche-dore she hadde fyve. 

Without en other comp any e in youthe. 

But without carrying this comparison any further, let us 
consider the Wife alone. Her very first word — ^^Experi- 
ence” — foretells us that we are going to hear something 
worth while. Le malin Chaucer! In the Prologue to the 
Legend of Good Women he tells us that books are all right 
where we have no other proof. And then he distinctly 
remarks that he turned to his hooks for the stories of good 


172 CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 

women! If we pass immediately from that poem to the 
Wife’s Prologue, we see the double force of these lines: 

Experience, though noon auctoritee 

Were in this world, were right y-nough to me 

To speke of wo that is in mariage. (D. 1-3) 

We are, consequently, to hear of matter that is true, the 
result of experience. But these very lines are taken from 
one of the ^‘olde bokes!” It should be remembered, how- 
ever, that Chaucer has given them an application and turn 
of his own. La Vieille simply says to Bel-Acueil — 

N’onc ne fu d ’Amors a escole 
Ou I’en leust la teorique 
Mais ge sai tout par la pratique. 

Experiment m’en ont fait sage. (RR. 13743-46) 

and promises that she will impart to him all the mysteries 
of the art. Line 3 of the Wife’s Prologue is Chaucer’s 
own addition. 

With lines 235 ff. Chaucer introduces his observations on 
marriage and the ‘^fair sex,” and he screens himself well 
by having the Wife, who as much as admits that she is 
just making talk, accuse her husbands of sarcastic and 
uncomplimentary remarks about women in general and her 
in particular. This imaginary conversation, some twenty 
lines of which appear to have been borrowed from the 
Roman de la Bose, extends to line 378. 

But Chaucer is not satisfied to leave all that he has to 
say of women reported so indirectly. He has the Wife 
herself confess that 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


173 


Deceite, weping, spinning god hath yive 
To wommen kindely, whyl they may live. (401-402) 

and she goes on to show how she possessed her share of the 
deceit at least. These two devices for bringing into promi- 
nence the undesirable traits of women — first by making the 
Wife report a word-attack her husband made on her, and 
second by having her show just how she treated her five 
mates — are separated in the Roman by several thousand 
lines, and form two distinct speeches by two different char- 
acters, the Amis and La Vieille. The uniting by Chaucer 
of the general method of the two is certainly a gain for 
emphasis and unity. 

The Wife of Bath’s reference to her lost youth is dis- 
tinctly pathetic. In this passage Chaucer has greatly im- 
proved on his sources — Jean de Meung and Ovid — ^by the 
addition of 11. 474 ff. The speech is so perfect and so nat- 
ural, in fact, that we can fairly hear the Wife pause in the 
midst of her volubility when she remembers that she is no 
longer young, that the flour is gone, and that she has only 
bran to sell. But she suddenly recollects herself, and pro- 
ceeds gaily with the account of her fourth husband. 

The Wife’s treatment of her fifth husband’s book: 

And made him brenne his book anon right tho, (D. 816) 

has a rather curious literary precedent in Marie de France’s 
lay of Gnigemar, 11. 234 ff. 

In addition to this not uninteresting correspondence, I 
have noted two more parallels of idea between the Wife’s 
Prologue and the Roman: 


174 CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 

The Wife’s appeal to Scripture in D. 107-110 is exactly 
the same that Faux-Semblant makes in RR. 12298-301. 

Her argument in 115 If., while decidedly more specific, is 
the same as Reason’s in the Roman, 5120-5145, although the 
Wife’s takes an original turn with line 135. 

In conclusion, we may glance again at our table of paral- 
lels to see how Chaucer used the French poem. In the first 
place, while a number of the short passages of the English 
are almost literal translations from the French, Chaucer is 
not content to follow his model consecutively for any length 
of time. Often a line taken over bodily from the Roman 
starts in his mind an entirely new train of thought, which 
he works out originally. In the Wife’s Prologue we see 
that he has chosen striking phrases and ideas from all parts 
of the Romani de la Rose, and has made of them, along with 
other material, a Prologue which perfectly fits the teller of 
it. But it is not in his borrowings that Chaucer was great- 
est, although he displays rare genius for selection, coordina- 
tion, and adaption of the work of his famous predecessors. 
It is his realistic, intimate touches of human nature, of real 
life as he saw it, that make him in the highest and truest 
sense original. 


CHAPTER VI 


Proverbs and Proverbial Expressions 

Proverbial material is hard to define and classify. Chau- 
cer uses the word proverb’’ to characterize a few of the 
adages in his pieces, but by far the greater number of his 
proverbs are not formally introduced. The parallels that 
remain to be considered in this chapter and the next par- 
take of the nature of proverbs and philosophical discus- 
sions, if the terms may be intrepreted somewhat liberally. 
By proverb we shall understand a brief pithy statement of 
a more or less general truth, regardless of whether it has 
developed into a popular maxim. By proverbial expres- 
sions we shall mean such observations and bits of advice 
as are distinctly sententious and might easily be turned into 
genuine adages. More extended discussions of Chaucer’s 
will be reserved for Chapter YII. 

It is a commonplace to say that the people of the Middle 
Ages were fond of proverbs. A timely adage was often 
more effective than a sword thrust — at least in the stories ; 
a line or two of popular wisdom had more persuasive power 
than might or right. But proverbs were not used merely 
as defensive weapons; they were used on every occasion. 
There was hardly a human situation possible which could 
not be taken care of by an adage. The universal use of 
proverbs in medieval literature must not be misinter- 
preted, however ; it is not to be taken as evidence that the 


175 


176 


CHAUCEE AND THE KOMAN DE LA EOSE 


age was one of aggressive morality or of serious didacticism. 
For proverbs either could represent the utilitarian justifica- 
tion of the fable or could enforce the spiritual lesson of the 
parable. Their employment was, in the main, conventional, 
habitual. 

A study of the proverbs of Chaucer might be conducted 
in one of two ways. All the proverbs occurring in his work 
might be collected and then classified into maxims relating 
to love, speech, silence, fortune, or what not. Or, each 
character apt at quoting proverbs, as Pandarus or the 
Wife of Bath or the Pardoner, could be studied as a unit. 
This method, of course, is the same that we have termed in 
another place chronological. In an examination of the 
proverbs which Chaucer is thought to have taken from the 
Roman de la Rose the chronological method is far more 
instructive than the topical. It is not likely that the poet 
systematized all the maxims and sententious remarks made 
in the French poem, indexed them, and pigeon-holed them, 
so to say, for further use. It is much more reasonable to 
suppose that when writing up certain situations or when 
portraying certain characters, he had in mind analogous 
scenes or personages of other works, and transferred into 
his own poem what was said elsewhere under similar, or 
perhaps opposite, circumstances. It is unfair both to Chau- 
cer and to the authors of the Roman de la Rose not to 
examine the setting in which we find parallel passages. To 
do this logically one must take up either Chaucer ’s work in 
complete units or the Roman de la Rose in consecutive 
parts. As we are particularly concerned with the question 
of the use that the English poet made of the French poem. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


177 


we may look here at his characters as entities, and from 
what is said both by the poet and by his personages, attempt 
to get additional light on the question of the effect of the 
Roman de la Rose on Chaucer. 

The Book of the Duchess 

The only passage in the Book of the Duchess to be 
noticed at any length in connection with proverbial mate- 
rial in the Roman, is the comparison which the knight 
makes between his lady and a lighted torch : 

Therto she coude so wel pleye. 

Whan that hir liste, that I dar seye. 

That she was lyk to torche bright. 

That every man may take of light 

Ynough, and hit hath never the lesse. (961-965)^ 

This follows immediately after an enumeration of her 
physical charms. The simile of the torch, says Skeat, was 
^^a common illustration,” and he refers us to RR. 8162. As 
the French lines are significant, I reprint them : 

Moult est fox qui tel chose esperne, 

C ’est la chandele en la lanterne ; 

Qui mil en i alumeroit, 

Je mains de feu n’i troveroit. 

Chascun set la similitude, 

Se moult n’a I’entendement rude. (8161-66) 

It may have been Jean’s very statement that everyone 
knows this simile that suggested its use to Chaucer. But 

1 Chaucer uses the same illustration in the Prologue to the Wife’s 
Tale, 333-335, where the lines have a more decided proverbial ring. 


178 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


its application by the English poet to what he has said in 
the lines immediately preceding is not clear. What is the 
sense of pleyef Similarly, Marteau remarks in his note to 
these lines in the French poem ‘ ^ Cette comparaison et la 

pensee qui precede sont assez obscures, on tout au moins 
fort mal presentees. L ’auteur veut dire: Jalousie pretend 
garder pour elle seule Bel-Accueil et ses charmes, comme 
Favare son or; c’est sottise. En effet, qui obtient les 
favours d’une femme ne fait tort a personne. Allumer sa 
chandelle a celle d’un autre, est-ce lui faire tort? Pour un 
peu, Jehan de Meung dirait: Seduire la femme, c’est faire 
beaucoup d’honneur au mari. Mais il se contente d’affirmer 
que ce n’est pas lui faire tort, les charmes de la femme 
n’augmentant point a ne pas servir, pas plus que Tor au 
fond d’un sac. Petite economie!” 

Three explanations suggest themselves to account for 
Chaucer’s use of the figure of speech in relation to Jean de 
Meung ’s: (1) Either the English poet was not thinking 

of the French poem at all when he wrote the lines, or (2) 
he had this very passage of the Roman in mind, but inter- 
preted it innocently, or (3) he understood Jean de Meung 
as Marteau understood him, but deliberately changed the 
application. What he goes on to say about the lady’s good- 
ness and virtue seems to accord with this third explanation. 
One hardly dares suggest that Chaucer implies that the 
lady’s philosophy about granting favors was the same as 
that of the Amis (who speaks the French lines). It is true 
that B. Duch. 961 is unfortunate as a transitional line, but 
we lack evidence for supposing that Chaucer meant any- 

la Vol. II, p. 424. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE I 79 

thing more by the comparison than that Blanche, always 
beautiful, always gracious, without losing any of her charm 
kindled the hearts of all men that looked on her. 

Skeat says that B. Duch. 791-92 : 

I chees love to my firste craft, 

Therfor it is with me (y)-laft, 

refers to the old proverb that what is learned in youth 
remains most indelibly fixed in the mind. In his note to 
these lines (V, 483), after citing the Hendyng form of the 
adage, he suggests for comparison RR. 13831-34. In the 
French poem Plato is given credit for the sentiment — 

Car Platon dist, c’est chose voire, etc.^ 
Parlement of Foules 

The last line of the warning inscription over one side of 
the gate into the park — 

Th’ eschewing is only the remedy e. (140) 

may be, as Skeat says, from RR. 17553 : 

Sol foir en est medicine.-^ 

The French line is spoken by Genius, who is advising men 

2 According to Langlois, Plato was known to Jean de Meung and 
his contemporaries only through Chalcidius^s Latin translation of the 
Timaeus, The immediate source of RR. 13830-32 was Chalcidius: 

‘ ^ Certusque illud expertus sum, tenaciorem fere memoriam rerum 
quae in prima discuntur aetate. 

2a In Twain and Gawin we find the proverb expressed in slightly 
different words: 


‘^To fie than was his best rede. 


(1910) 


180 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


to fly womankind if they would live in safety. As Genius 
later describes the kind of garden that lovers should seek 
as opposed to Guillaume ’s garden of Mirth, and as Chaucer 
contrasts in the Parlement the two paradises, the use of this 
proverb here is another bit of evidence for the theory I 
proposed in the last chapter: that the English poet was 
intentionally drawing a comparison between Geniuses view 
of love and Guillaume’s. 

There is nothing to show that Chaucer was thinking of 
KR. 5453-54 when he lets the ^^sperhauk” say. 

But sooth is seyd, fool can noght be stille.” (574) 

Skeat in his note to this line gives a number of instances 
of the occurrence of this extremely common proverb. 

Anelida and Arcite 

There is no evidence that Chaucer had any part of the 
Boman de la Rose in mind when writing Anelida and 
Arcite, At most, 11. 315-316 are but a doubtful reminis- 
cence of RR. 10660-61. 


Boethius 

We have already discussed a few of Chaucer’s glosses to 
lines in his translation of Boethius. Three additions of our 
poet which have a proverbial ring have been credited to his 
knowledge of the Roman de la Rose, and may be noticed 
here. 

In Book II, prose v, 11. 129-131, Chaucer writes, ^^as who 
seith, a pore man, that berth no richesse on him by the weye, 
may boldely singe biforn theves, for he hath not wherof to 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


181 


ben robbed/^ These lines, Miss Cipriani thinks, are a 
reminiscence of Jean de Meung: 

Miex porroit uns ribaus de Grieve 
Seur et seul par tout aler, 

Et devant les larrons baler. 

Sans douter eus et lor affaire. (6001-6004) 

The idea is, of course, ultimately from Juvenal, Satire X, 
22, although Jean de Meung does not mention the Latin 
satirist ^s name in this connection. Chaucer clearly knew, 
at least as early as the Wife’s Tale, that the lines were 
from Juvenal, because he repeats the quotation and credits 
Juvenal with it : 

Juvenal seith of povert merily, etc. (D. 1192) 

He could not have got this information from Jean’s text. 
Moreover, his gloss is by no means a translation of the 
French : the French has haler y while Boethius in the line to 
which Chaucer’s explanation was added has cantaresy Juve- 
nal has cantahity and the English poet has singe. Again, 
pore man does not equal ribaus. There is not the slightest 
reason why Chaucer should have gone outside of Boethius 
for 11. 129-131. They surely resemble his own translation of 
‘‘si vitae huius callem vacuus viator intrasses, coram latrone 
cantares” much more closely than they resemble the lines 
of Jean de Meung. 

In Book II, prose iv, 11. 80-82, we read, “as who seith, 
thou thy-self, ne no wight elles, nis a wrecche, but whan 
he weneth himself a wrecche by reputacioun of his corage, ’ ’ 
which is nothing more than an expansion of the line “and 
forthy nothing (is) wrecched, but whan thou wenest it.” 


182 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA KOSE 


Miss Cipriani refers Chaucer’s expanded explanation to 
RR. 5767, which merely says: 

‘^Nus n’est chetis, s’il n’el cuide estre.” 

It is true that Jean de Meung is quoting from Boethius; he 
says he is. But he translates literally — in this line at least. 
If Miss Cipriani had cited the next line from the Roman: 
^‘Soit rois, chevaliers, on ribaus,” which might have sug- 
gested Chaucer’s ‘^ne no wight elles,” her case would have 
been stronger. However, there is no need at all to suppose 
that Chaucer was borrowing from a paraphrase of the 
material he was translating, rather than from that material 
itself. 

In Book IV, prose iv, 11. 205-206, Chaucer translates and 
explains thus : ‘ ^ For which it bitydeth that, as to the wyse 
folk, ther nis no place y-leten to hate ; that is to seyn, that 
ne hate hath no place amonges wyse men.^^ Anyone can see 
that the italicised portion (Chaucer’s interpretation) reads 
exactly like the portion before the semicolon. It seems 
superfluous to cite as an original for Chaucer’s line (206) 
this from the Roman : ‘ ^ Que nule riens hair doie-en, ’ ’ 6495, 
which is said by Reason in a situation absolutely different 
from that in the Consolations, 

We may conclude, then, that none of these three passages 
cited from the Roman de la Rose probably had any influ- 
ence on Chaucer’s glosses.^^ 

2 b Some of Miss Cipriani 's other jjarallels between Chaucer ’s 
Boethius and the Boman seem to me of even less significance, viz., 
Bo. V, pr. iii, 125-126 and EE. 18060-61; 127-129 and EE. 18102-3, 
18711-13; Bo. V, pr. vi, 113-114 and BE. 18213-15; 205 and EE. 
18209-11. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


183 


TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 

As might be expected from his role as adviser, Pandarus 
leads all the other characters in the Troilus in the num- 
ber of his proverbs. Criseyde follows fairly close behind. 
Troilus has so many quoted to him by both Pandarus and 
Criseyde that he has little heart to venture an original 
maxim. The narrator, Chaucer himself, indulges in a few. 
When we think of the wealth of regular proverbs that there 
is in the Roman de la Bose, and when we recall the part 
played by the French poem in helping to shape in Chaucer’s 
mind the characters of Troilus and Pandarus, we should be 
surprised if Chaucer had not occasionally drawn upon the 
sententious remarks of the Amis or of Reason for some of 
the words to put into the mouths of his characters. 

Of the parallels pointed out between the Roman de la 
Rose and Troilus and Criseyde, fourteen may be considered 
proverbs or bits of proverbial advice, distributed thus: 
Chaucer 1, Troilus 1, Criseyde 5, Pandarus 7. The exam- 
ples discussed below do not include all the adages and old 
saws contained in the poem, of course ; Chaucer has pressed 
into service many sources other than the Roman, and has 
doubtless drawn upon popular wisdom to a large extent. 
Indeed, our examination of those traced to the Roman de la 
Rose will show that not all of these can be proved con- 
clusively to have been taken from the French poem. 

Chaucer’s generalized description of the new lover 
Troilus ’s condition. 

For ay the neer the fyr, the hotter is (i, 449) 
was pretty clearly suggested by RR. 2370 : 


184 CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 

Qui plus est pres du feu, plus art,^^ 

— spoken by the god of Love after he has told of just such 
a situation as we find Troilus in. Miss Cipriani seems to 
have been the first to record the parallel. The expression 
must have been common, however, for Haeckel cites a num- 
ber of authorities for it, including two Latin examples.^ In 
Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaigne, Machault repeats the 
idea in the same words : 

Et cils qui est plus pres de feu, plus s’art. (1743) 

But he may have been following the Roman here as he fol- 
lowed it many places elsewhere. 

Troilus does not exactly make the statement that 

Eek som-tyme it is craft to seme fiee 
Fro thing which in effect men hunte faste, 

(i. 747-48) 

Chaucer says that ‘^al this gan Troilus in his herte cast.” 
We have a right to attribute the thought to the young lover, 
nevertheless, for it was clearly meant as his own. Koeppel 
has compared the lines with RB. 8308-9 : 

Or doit chacier, or doit foir, 

Qui vuet de bonne amor joir, 

a couplet spoken by the Amis. The situations are not 
identical, and the significance of the parallel appears to me 
to be slight. 

2 c Translated in the Bomaunt : 

Who is next fjr, he brenneth most. (2478) 

3 Willi Haeckel: Das Sprichwort hei Chaucer (Erlanger Beitrage, 
VIII, 1890), p. 17. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


185 


Chronologically it was impossible for Criseyde to know 
the Roman de la Bose, but artistically not impossible. 
Chaucer has studied the poem carefully for her and with 
remarkable skill has brought her to say what reveals her 
most intimate self. 

When Pandarus is talking with her for the first time 
about Troilus’s goodness and bravery, she replies that she 
is glad to hear of a king ^s son conducting himself so well — 

For greet power and moral vertu here 

Is selde y-seye in o persone y-fere. (ii. 167-168) 

a couplet from Lucan quoted by Reason in the Roman, 
6395-97. And when a little later she is arguing with her- 
self whether or not to accept Troilus’s attentions and love, 
she helps to settle her mind with this reflection : 

In every thing, I woot, ther lyth mesure. 

For though a man forbede dronkenesse. 

He nought for-bet that every creature 
Be drinkelees for alwey, as I gesse. (ii. 715-718) 

another thought taken from Reason’s speech (RR. 6479-80). 
Chaucer could not have summed up Criseyde ’s character in 
a single phrase better than he sums it up here by implica- 
tion: she is Reason personified. Whether or not it was 
divine inspiration that led him to choose this half-capitu- 
lating remark of Reason : 

Por ce se ge deffens ivrece, 

Ne voil-ge pas deffendre a boivre, 

and put it in Criseyde ’s mouth, it was certainly more than 
mere chance. 


186 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


There are two passages in the Roman de la Rose that 
Chaucer may have had in mind when Criseyde says, 

Our wrecche is this our owene wo to drinke (ii. 784) 

one spoken by La Vieille, 

fait folie, si la boive,’^ (13580) 

pointed out by Koeppel, who also compares it with two 
other lines of Criseyde, iii. 956 and 1035; and one spoken 
by Faux-Semblant : ^^Tex gens boivent trop de mesaise,’^ 
12460 {Rom, 6807). These two names coupled with that of 
Criseyde sound suspicious ; but the proverb was un- 
doubtedly common. It appears in the Seven Sages: 

Thou schalt suffre kare and howe. 

And drinke that thou hast i-browe, (1493-94) 

and in the Confessio Amantis: 

And whoso wicked Ale breweth, 

Fulofte he mot the werse drinke. (III. 1626-27) 

two parallels not noted before in this connection. But then, 
if Chaucer lets Alceste use arguments and proverbs of 
Faux-Semblant, why should he not let Criseyde ? 

In Book IV, 1305-6, Criseyde turns god of Love and com- 
forts Troilus with the same words that Cupid uses to cheer 
the lover in the first part of the Roman. For she says. 

But him behoveth som-tyme ban a payne. 

That serveth love, if that he wol have joye, 

and he says, 

Et plus en gre sunt receu 
Li biens dont Feu a mal eu. 

(RR. 2613-14. Rom. 2740-42) 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


187 


There is no other resemblance, except their speeches here, 
between Criseyde and the god of Love; but there is cer- 
tainly a distinct resemblance between Troilus and Guil- 
laume’s lover. Miss Cipriani recorded the parallel passages 
just quoted, but not the significance of them. The situa- 
tions are more alike than the mere words. 

From these few hints that have been thrown out, it may 
be seen that a careful comparative study of parallel pas- 
sages and undoubted borrowings in Chaucer, will reveal in 
a most startling and interesting way the working of the 
poet ’s mind, and will give us — ^what we feel we often lack — 
intimate glimpses of the artist in his workshop. 

Pandarus, as we have shown, in his general role corre- 
sponds to the Amis of Jean de ]\Ieung, but tliese two con- 
fidants are unlike each other in one important particular : 
Pandarus stays by Troilus to the last ; the Amis drops out 
of the Roman very suddenly, overcome, perhaps, by his own 
long discourse. Their parts are played in entirely differ- 
ent ways. It is natural, however, that Chaucer should have 
adapted from the many proverbs and bits of worldly advice 
that the Amis communicates to L’Amant, a few lines to 
Pandarus ; and so he did adapt them. Chaucer has selected 
nothing, however, from this part of the Roman that would 
refute our double contention that Jean de Meung’s Amis as 
a whole is totally unlike the friend whom the god of Love 
commends toward the beginning of the poem, and that 
Pandarus bears very little resemblance to Jean’s Amis and 
very much to Guillaume’s. Of course, here as elsewhere 
Chaucer has made use of a variety of sources. He does not 
limit himself for the proverbs of Pandarus to the Amis’s 


188 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


speech or even to the Roman or the Filostrato. He skill- 
fully works in everything he can find to make this great 
character complete yet consistent. 

First we may consider the parallels not taken from the 
discourse of the Amis. 

Koeppel suggests as a parallel to Pandarus’s elaboration 
of the maxim ‘^By his contrarie is every thing declared/^ 
i. 638-644, a passage from the very end of the Roman de la 
Rose, 11. 22574-88, the same passage that Miss Cipriani 
prints as an analogue to Troilus’s words to Criseyde, iii. 
1212-21. I think there can be no doubt that the French 
lines inspired the philosophical remarks of Pandarus. The 
resemblance is very close. But when Chaucer has Troilus 
say, after he has won the heart of Criseyde — 

0 ! sooth is seyd, that heled for to be 
As of a fevre or othere greet syknesse. 

Men moste drinke, as men may often see, 

Ful hittre drink ; and for to han gladnesse, 

]\Ien drinken often peyne and greet distresse ; 

I mene it here, as for this aventure. 

That thourgh a peyne hath founden al his cure. 

And now swetnesse someth more swete, 

That bitternesse assayed was hiforn ; 

For out of wo in hlisse now they flete. 

(iii. 1212-1221) 

the poet is not turning hack to the Roman again ; he is sim- 
ply representing the happy lover as recalling the senten- 
tious remarks which his friend Pandarus made when 
Troilus was sulfering the tortures of unrequited affection, 
and as now testifying to the truth of those philosophical 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


189 


remarks. This is a natural, realistic touch of Chaucer’s 
that should not be missed. 

Koeppel also showed that these lines of Pandarus — 

Wliat ! many a man hath love f ul dere y-bought 
Twenty winter that his lady wiste, 

That never yet his lady mouth he kiste. (i. 810-12) 

spoken to Troilus in order to rouse him into action from 
his lethargy of despair, are almost an exact translation of 
RR. 21878-81, — lines with which Pygmalion temporarily 
comforts himself in the possession of his cold ivory statue 
instead of a warm living body. He can at least kiss the 
statue, he says. This whole episode of Pygmalion, accord- 
ing to Marteau, is a later interpolation into the Boman de 
la Bose; but it is pretty clear from this parallel and one in 
the Knight es Tale that Chaucer’s MS. of the French poem 
contained the story of Pygmalion. 

Miss Cipriani suggests as a parallel to Pandarus ’s state- 
ment that ‘^he that parted is in every place is nowhere 
hool,” i. 960-961, three lines of the god of Love’s warning, 
RR. 2250-52. I think that lines 2255-56 furnish a much 
closer correspondence : 

Qui en mains leus son cuer depart 
Par tout en a petite part. 

Compare Rom. 2367-68. 

Resemblances have been noted between four ideas that 
Pandarus communicates to Troilus and four that the Amis 
imparts to the lover. "We may examine these briefly. 

If we admit with Miss Cipriani that the proverbial advice 
which Pandarus gives Troilus. — that he should blot his let- 


190 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


ter to Criseyde with tears, ii. 1027 was inspired by RR. 
8222, we shall have to accept many a faint parallel. There 
is no identity of situation here: in the Roman the friend 
is advising the lover to weep real (or feigned) tears in 
the presence of his lady. No mention is made of any 
letter. Pandarus’s suggestion is most natural and conven- 
tional, and surely does not need to be traced to the French 
poem. 

Again, Pandarus tells his friend that 

. . . wyse ben by foies harm chastysed, (iii. 329) 

a line which Skeat, following Koeppel, says that Chaucer 
took from the Roman de la Rose, 8754-55: 

Moult a beneuree vie 
Cil qui par autri se chastie. 

The lines in the French poem occur in the friend’s long 
digression about the miseries of poverty, and there is noth- 
ing in the setting of the speech or in the wording of the 
lines to warrant Skeat ’s dogmatic statement. The context 
of the one passage is utterly different from that of the 
other. Moreover, in Book I, Pandarus had already elab- 
orated the idea that ‘‘A fool may eek a wys man ofte 
gyde.” (See i. 630-637.) The proverb was certainly well- 
known. In Twain and Gawin, for instance, occurs the neat 
little couplet — 

Bot yet a foie, that litel kan. 

May wele cownsail another man, (1477-78) 

Miss Cipriani’s source for Pandarus ’s lines of advice to 
Troilus in iii. 1622-24 and 1634, is reasonable and probable ; 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


191 


viz., RR. 9013-19.^^ It should be noted here particularly 
that the lines Chaucer has chosen from the Amis’s speech 
have nothing incongruous with Guillaume’s conception of 
what the confidential friend should advise. Jean de 
Meung’s Amis goes on to tell the lover that women are 
coquettes. Pandarus does not say this to Troilus ; Chaucer 
lets Criseyde prove by her actions what she is. 

THE HOUS OF FAME 

Dido was the stock example in the Middle Ages of the 
deceived mistress, and Aeneas was, as a rule, soundly 
berated by the poets telling her story. Chaucer’s observa- 
tions in Book I of the Sous of Fame on the treachery of 
lovers and the falseness of men is nothing but poetical 
orthodoxy. It is altogether unlikely that for these two 
passages : 

For this shal every woman finde 
That som man, of his pure kinde, 

Wol shewen outward the faireste, 

Til he have caught that what him leste. . (279-282) 

and 

How sore that ye men conne grone, 

Anoon, as we have been receyved, 

Certeinly we ben deceyved, (338-40) 

the poet was skipping about in the Roman from 11. 5008-14 
to 14080-82, then to 22489-98 — portions of the French poem 

3a With these lines compare Ars Amat., II, 11-13. T. iii. 1634, 
might easily have been taken from the Latin: 

Nec minor est virtus, quam quaerere, parta tueri. 

— Ars Amat,, II, 13. 


192 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


that Miss Cipriani points out as analogous to our quotations. 

The couplet about the fleeting nature of time, 1257-58, 
would seem to have been written with the Romaunt in mind. 
The verbal correspondence of these two lines with Rom. 
5123-24 (RR. 5344-45) is striking— 

For tyme y-lost, this knowen For tyme lost, as men may 
ye, see. 

By no way may recovered For no-thing may recured 
be. (HP-) be. (Rom.) 

Skeat makes the following remarks on the similarity of the 
two passages: ‘^As these lines (i. e., Rom. 5123-24) are not 
in the original, the writer may have taken them from Chau- 
cer ’s Hous of Fame. The converse seems to me unlikely; 
however, they are not remarkable for originality.’’ (I, 
439.) But they are in the original! Rom. 5121-22 does not 
entirely translate the French couplet. Although it is 
almost impossible to establish the date of the B-fragment 
of the English translation, it might easily be older than the 
Hous of Fame. 

The Man of Lawes reference to the irrecoverable quality 
of time and his comparison of time with the stream that 
flows down the mountain and never returns to its source 
again, B. 20-24, closely resembles the Rom., 369ff., as Skeat 
has pointed out in his notes. The Clerk makes a briefer 
statement, E. 118. 

PROLOGUE TO THE LEGEND 

When Alceste undertakes to defend the poet and to 
answer the charges that the god of Love makes against 
him, she uses among other arguments one taken from Faux- 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


193 


Semblant’s answer to the accusations of Male-Bouche 
against the lover in the Roman. Alceste says, 

‘‘Al ne is nat gospel that is to yow pleyned,’’ (a) 326, 

and Faux-Semblant begins his speech thus : 

Sire, tout n’est pas evangile 
Quanque Ten dit aval la vile, (13215-16) 

The comparison of truth with the gospel was doubtless pro- 
verbial and is not uncommon in Old French poetry: it 
occurs elsewhere in the Romany and in Rutebeuf^ and 
Machault.^ But the similarity of situations and of the 
arguments that follow the lines quoted make it pretty cer- 
tain that Chaucer had his eye on the Roman in this place. 
Compare also Romaunt 7609 ff. 

The other proverb that Alceste uses to quiet the wrath 
of the god of Love — 

For in your court is many a losengeour 

And many a queynte totelere accusour, (b) 352-53 

is, according to Skeat, a reminiscence of what is said of the 
flatterers around Richesse in the early part of the Romaunt y 
1062-66 (RR. 1052-55). Another parallel might have been 
suggested, RR. 1973-78 (Rom. 2045-50). It would have 
been quite a happy thought to have Alceste make before the 

4 Compare 

Ausi voir comme est Evangile 
Est ceste chose. 

— CEuvrcs, II, p. 261, 11. 639-640. 

Sire, il est voirs come euvangile. 

— Oeuvres, ed. Tarbe, p. 78, 1. 11. 


5 Compare 


194 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


god of Love the confession that Cupid makes to the lover 
in the Roman de la Rose, and I am not sure that Chaucer 
was not thinking of the passage I suggest. Chaucer repeats 
this couplet later on in the Nomine Preestes Tale (B) 4515- 
4516. The character of Alceste studied from the point of 
view of the sources of her remarks so far as we can deter- 
mine them might throw not a little new and interesting 
light on the meaning of the Prologue of the Legend, 

THE KNIGHTES TALE 

The Knight is fond of proverbs and he commonly intro- 
duces those he uses with the clause, ^^But sooth is seyd.’’ 
Three of his sayings have been traced back to the Roman: 
(A) 1625-26, 2447-48, 3041-42. 

The source of the first, 

Ful sooth is seyd, that love ne lordshipe 
Wol noght, his thankes, have no felawshipe, 

has been pointed out by Skeat in his note to 1. 1625. The 
same idea is elaborated in the Frankeleyns Tale, (F) 764- 
66. The lines in the Roman corresponding to 1625-26 are 
9198-9202. 

The source of the second. 

As sooth is sayd, elde hath greet avantage ; 

In elde is bothe wisdom and usage, (2447-48) 

is three lines from the Duenna’s discourse to Bel-Acueil, 
and, as Skeat does not print the passage, it may be recorded 
here: 

Ne fait a foir, n’a despire 

Tout ce qui est en grant aage ; 

La trueve Fen sens et usage. (RE. 13759-61) 


CHAUCEK AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


195 


The third, 

Thanne is it wisdom, as it thinketh me, 

To maken virtue of necessitee, (3041-42) 

is spoken by Theseus. The idea occurs at least once in the 
Roman, 14960-61, where the words are spoken by La 
Vieille. The thought is applicable to almost any uncom- 
fortable situation, however, and Chaucer employs it twice 
elsewhere, T. iv. 1586 and F. 593. But its being put in the 
mouth of Criseyde when she finds that she has to leave Troy 
is Chaucer’s finest, most appropriate use of it. Who bet- 
ter than Criseyde could ^‘make a virtue of necessity”? 

THE miller’s prologue 

The drunken Miller’s remark to Oswald, ^^Who hath no 
wyf, he is no cokewold,” (A) 3152, Koeppel compares with 
RR. 9877-79. As the French lines contain an emphatic 
reference to the experience of Arnold, the saint of cuckolds, 
Chaucer may have remembered the passage here. But 
Chaucer’s phraseology sounds like that of a popular prov- 
erb, and it is very questionable whether the poet had the 
Roman in mind. The Miller’s Prologue and Tale, as a 
whole, seems to be particularly free from direct influence 
of the French poem. 


THE REVES TALE 

Oswald triumphantly quits the Miller” with this pro- 
verbial flourish at the end of his story of the Miller of 
Trumpington : 

^‘A gylour shal him-self bigyled be.” (A) 4321. 

The expression was so common that it is impossible to say 


196 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


what occurrence of it Chaucer had in mind when he wrote 
it down here. In addition to Skeat’s examples of its 
appearance in literature a few more might be mentioned. 

Si sachies que cis font bone uevre, 

Qui les deceveors decoivent. (RR. 8094-95) 

Par barat estuet barater. (RR. 8139) 

Lobans lobes et lobeurs 

Robe robes et robeors. (Ibid., 12476-77) 

Et cil lobent les lobeors 
Et desrobent les robeors 
Et servent lobeors de lobes, 

Ostent aux robeors lor robes. 

(Rutebeuf II, p. 18) 

Qui simulat verbis, nec corde est fidus amicus ; 

Tu quoque fac similes ; sic ars deluditur arti. 

(Cato, Disticha, I, xxvi) 

PROLOGUE OF THE MANNES TALE OF LAWE 

For his discussion of the evils of poverty Chaucer may 
have used a few details from the discourse of the Amis in 
the Roman de la Rose, 8900-8940. Tyrwhitt noted that 
this ‘‘sentence of the wyse,’’ 

Bet is to dyen then have indigence. (B) 114, 
occurs in RR. 8928; but Chaucer ^s “indigence’’ suggests 
that his original was the Vulgate, Ecclus., xl, 28.® 

THE PARDONERES PROLOGUE 

Tyrwhitt adduced as a parallel to the couplet. 

For certes many a predicacioun 

Comth ofte tyme of yvel entencioun, (407-408) 

^ See Skeat note, V, p. 143. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


197 


Romaunt 5763-64 (RR. 5834-35). The same rhymes are 
found in all three passages, but it is clear from Chaucer’s 
‘‘ofte tyme” that he was following the English transla- 
tion of the Roman. The Pardoner’s mention of ‘^veyne 
glorie” (411), ‘‘ipocrisye” (410), and avarice” are 
fairly good evidence that Chaucer got other hints for this 
Prologue from Reason’s sermon on evil priests and the 
misery of avarice (RR. 5792-5839). No one seems to 
have noted the fact hitherto. 

THE PROLOGUE AND TALE OF THE WYP OF BATHE 

Whoso that nil be war by othere men 

By him shul othere men corrected be. (D. 180-181) 

repeats the thought of T. iii. 329. Koeppel suggested RR. 
8754-55 as a source of both passages. There is a slight 
resemblance between the Wife’s story of tribulation in 
marriage, which she tells to the company, and the Amis’s 
story of his wretched poverty, which he tells to the lover. 
But the parallel does not appear to me conclusive that 
Chaucer had the lines of the Amis in mind here. 

The statement 

He that covey teth is a povre wight, (1187) 

has been compared by Koeppel with RR. 19499. Skeat 
says that lines 1184-1190 are imitated from Seneca’s 
Epistles,'^ and, indeed, Chaucer mentions ^^Senek” in line 
1184. The line in the Roman suggested by Koeppel comes 
shortly before the long passage in which Nature discusses 

7 See note, Yol. V, p. 320. , 


198 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


the question, ‘^Who is a gentleman?’^ As the Wife has 
just been expounding ‘Hrue gentilesse, ’ ’ it appears that 
Koeppel’s citation is perfectly reasonable. Possibly the 
association of poverty and real nobility of spirit in the 
Roman suggested to Chaucer the general scheme of the 
Wife’s sermon. 

The couplet setting forth one advantage of poverty, 

Povert a spectacle is, as thinketh me, 

Thurgh which he may his verray frendes see, (1203-4) 

seems to be rather a reminiscence of Chaucer’s own gloss 
to Boethius, Book II, prose viii, 31: ‘‘the knowinge of thy 
verray frendes,” than of Rom., 5551-52, as Skeat suggests. 
Neither Boethius nor Jean de Meung, however, liken pov- 
erty to an optic glass. 

The Wife, full of saws as her speech is, appears to owe 
very few of them to the Roman de la Rose. Her proverbs, 
especially those in the Prologue, are of the popular kind, 
picked up in daily intercourse with people and not culled 
from books. Probably there are no literary parallels to be 
found for many of them. 

THE MARCHANTES TALE 

The two lines describing the relation of husband and 
wife: 

0 flesh they been and o flesh, as I gesse. 

Hath but on herte, in wele and in distresse, 

(B. 1335-36) 

are taken from the Roman, says Skeat, following Koeppel. 
The French lines read : 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


199 


Nous fist deus estre en une char ; 

Et quant nous n’avons char fors une, 

Par le droit de la loi commune, 

Nfil ne puet en une char estre 

Fors que uns cuers a la senestre. (17366-70) 

This argument is used by the wheedling wife who is trying 
to persuade her husband to tell her his secrets. Jean’s 
roundabout method to express a simple thought as used 
here seems to fit the verbosity of a coaxing woman. Chaucer 
has condensed the five lines of his original into a line and a 
half; for ‘4n wele and in distresse” does not appear in the 
French. 

Lines 1559-61 are also taken from the Boman, says Skeat. 
But I see nothing in the passage he cites, ER. 14798-99, to 
warrant his assurance. The French text says, in effect, 
^‘The one who thinks to possess his wife alone has very 
little wisdom.” The sense of the English line is, ‘‘The 
youngest married man is kept busy trying to possess his 
wife alone.” 

The proverb. 

For every labour som-tyme moot han reste, (1862) 

is so common, and must have been so common in Chaucer’s 
day, that it is unreasonable to assert positively that it is 
from RE. 20663-64: 

Car choses sans reposement 
Ne puet pas durer longuement. 

HaeckeP cites many authorities for this maxim, and quotes 


8 Page 13. 


200 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


as almost equivalent to it the line in the Squieres Tale, 
(F) 349: 

That muche drinke and labour wolde ban reste. 

So far as proverbs are concerned, then, the MarcJiantes 
Tale seems to owe little to the Roman de la Rose. 

THE MAUNCIPLE’s TALE 

The story of Apollo’s white crow and the punishment 
it received may be considered an exemplum illustrating the 
proverb that the tongue ought to be reined. The Maunciple 
makes the application, lines 309ff : 

Lordings, by this ensample I you preye, 

Beth war, and taketh kepe what I seye, etc. 

The discussion is by no means short; it extends over more 
than fifty lines. Koeppel thinks that Chaucer was here 
following a treatise by Albertano of Brescia, entitled De 
arte loquendi et tacendi.^ Skeat refers H. 332-333 to RR. 
7783 and 7808. The line. 

Thing that is seyd, is seyd; and forth it gooth (355), 

is ultimately taken from Horace, Skeat says, and adds that 
Chaucer found it either in Albertano or in the Roman de la 
Rose, 17482-83. But if Skeat had looked one line further 
in the French and English passages, he would have found 
proof that Chaucer used the Roman. Compare the clause, 
‘though him repente,” in the following: 

9 Chaucer und Albertanus Brixiensis, by E. Koeppel. Archiv fiir 
das Studium der neueren Sprache. Vol. 86, pp. 44-46. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


201 


Thing that is seyd, is seyd ; and forth it gooth 
Though him repente, or be him leef or looth. 

Et quant dit Ta, si s’en repent; 

Mes parole une fois volee 

Ne puet plus estre rapelee. (RR. 17481-83) 

Moreover, Chaucer goes on to say, 

He is his thral to whom that he hath sayd 
A tale, of which he is now yvel apayd, (357-358) 

which is exactly the lesson that J ean de Meung enforces. 

The influence of the Roman on this whole digression of 
the Maunciple is greater than has been recognized. I have 
examined KoeppePs parallels from Albertano’s treatise and 
am by no means convinced that Chaucer was following 
the Italian writer. The critic’s equation of the introduc- 
tion of Albertano and that of the Maunciple as indicated 
by the line. 

But natheles thus taughte me my dame, (317) 

has no weight. The Wife of Bath says : 

My dame taughte me that soutiltee, (D. 576) 

Lines 329-331 are clearly from the French, not the Latin 
writer. Compare 

My sone, thy tonge sholdestow restreyne 
At alle tyme, but whan thou doost thy peyne 
To speak of god, in honour and preyere. 

with 

Que sages est cis qui met paine 
A ce que sa langue refraine. 

For sans plus quant de Diex parole . . . 


202 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Car nus ne puet Diex trop avoer . . . 

. . . ne trop beneir, 

Crier merci, ne graces rendre: (RR. 7786ff) 

Lines 332-334 are but a reminiscence of T. iii. 293-94, which 
in turn was taken from the Roman, as Koeppel himself 
showed in another article. We can conclude nothing from 
the fact that ‘‘Die von Chaucer citierten Autoritaten (11. 
344-345) nennt Albertano sehr haufig.’’ Again, the 
Maunciple’s exposition by no means follows consecutively 
Albertano ^s line of reasoning; Koeppel’s quotations are 
taken from all parts of the Latin tractate. Finally, there 
is only a general resemblance between the closest parallels. 
They are not close enough to forbid us to assume that 
Chaucer drew upon the Roman de la Rose^ the Bible, and 
his own common sense for most of his material here. At 
any rate, Koeppel was mistaken when he wrote that “no 
one would question the fact that Chaucer had read this 
little treatise of Albertano ’s. ’ ^ Chaucer may have known 
it, but as yet we have no sure proof. 


CHAPTER VII 


The Influence of the Roman de la Rose on Chaucer 

Philosophical Discussions 

^^All we know or think we know about Chaucer’s opin- 
ions must be gathered directly or indirectly from his own 
writings.” The task of recreating Chaucer the thinking 
person, would seem at first sight easy ; for we have a large 
bulk of genuine, varied work of the poet. But as soon as 
the investigator sits down to a poem and begins to read 
and to record the lines that express views on significant 
questions, he finds himself bewildered by contradictions. 
Suppose, for instance, that Troilus and Criseyde is selected 
to be studied for evidence of Chaucer’s philosophy. 
Pandarus and Troilus, it is soon discovered, have exactly 
opposite beliefs about fortune, the meaning of dreams and 
omens, necessity and predestination. In which character, 
if in either, is the poet revealing his own self? Perhaps 
the investigator decides that Pandarus ’s utter contempt 
for dreams and signs is Chaucer’s, and goes on to read the 
Hous of Fame, But here the poet professes ignorance and, 
unlike Troilus and Pandarus, decides to leave to ^‘grete 
clerkes” the solution of the causes and significance of 
dreams. And if the Nome Preestes Tale happens to be 
the next poem read, the seeker for light finds himself where 
he started : Chanticler, like Troilus, believes thoroughly in 
visions, and even uses learned arguments and ancient and 
modern instances to support his views; Pertelote, like 


203 


204 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Pandarus, says contemptuously that there is naught but 
vanity in ‘ ^ swevenes, ’ ’ and expounds scientifically the cause 
of bad dreams. 

We may ask ourselves, what are the most likely places in 
which to find an expression of Chaucer’s own convictions? 
(1) In the poems and parts of poems where the poet is 
speaking directly; (2) in the lines of the characters with 
whom we feel Chaucer is most in sympathy and is most 
like; (3) in the passages which, whether spoken by Chau- 
cer himself or by the personages created by him, agree 
with the beliefs of authors whom the poet, from other evi- 
dence, seems to have admired; and (4) in the passages 
which present a line of reasoning in direct opposition to 
that of the poet’s favorite authors. 

It is not a difficult matter to select out of Chaucer’s en- 
tire work the lines which the poet writes as his own utter- 
ances. Such a collection would include, roughly speak- 
ing, most of the minor poems, the author’s narrative in 
Troilus, large portions of the Hous of Fame and the Legend, 
the Treatise on the Astrolabe, the Prologue to the Canter- 
bury Tales, and various connecting links between the tales 
themselves, besides Sir Thopas and Melibeus, But even 
in judging from these portions, one must bear in mind 
the author’s artistic purpose. 

It is much more difficult to pick out with any feeling of 
assurance the characters most like Chaucer, for in each 
of his great personages he has given us a more or less com- 
plete living being. By a process of elimination we can 
exclude many who bear no resemblance to the poet. Those 
whom probably most critics would agree on as embodying 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


205 


one or more attributes of Chaucer himself are Pandarus, 
Harry Bailey, the Wife of Bath, and the Chanouns Yeman. 
There are a number of characters who exhibit minor 
tendencies and express now and then ideas that we asso- 
ciate with the poet; as Criseyde, the goddess Nature (in 
the Parlement of Foiiles), Pertelote, the Persoun. Then, 
too, from such characters as the Pardoner, the Frere, and 
the Sumnour, utterly unlike our poet, we can determine 
many of the things Chaucer disliked. 

The third and fourth groups of passages can be deter- 
mined by an investigation of the sources of Chaucer. 

A full discussion of the nature of Chaucer’s mind would 
fill volumes, and would have to be the result of an examina- 
tion and a reinterpretation in part of all that has been 
written on the poet. Our concern here is with specific 
passages which show the attitude of our poet or of his char- 
acters on certain questions treated in the Roman de la Rose. 
In other words, we purpose to make here a comparative 
study of the beliefs of Chaucer and Jean de Meung (and 
Guillaume de Lorris, so far as he expresses himself) on 
definite question of metaphysical or practical philosophy. 

FORTUNE 

Fortune is an old figure even in classical literature, and 
appears frequently in Old French and Middle English 
poetry.^ In the Roman de la Rose Reason refers to the 

1 Richard Rolle ’s FricTce of Conscience contains a discussion of 
^ ^ Dam Fortone ’ ^ and her wheel. Rolle says that men call her 

^'noght elles 

Bot happe or chaunce, that sodanli falles.’’ (1281-82) 

See also many of the poems in JubinaUs collection, Jongleurs et 
Trouveres. 


206 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


appropriate way the ancients had of representing the 
goddess as blindfolded: 

Por ce li oil bende li furent 

Des anciens qui la congnurent. (RR. 6909-6910) 

Jean de Meung, as is well known, through the mouth of 
Reason gives a long discussion of the fickle deity (6578- 
7643). The main sources for this material, besides the his- 
torical allusions, were Boethius, Solinus, and Alanus de 
Insulis — as Langlois has pointed out. The poet has suc- 
ceeded, in spite of his rambling sermon, which treats of 
almost every conceivable aspect of the subject, in present- 
ing Fortune as a pretty distinct personage. She is visual- 
ized as standing upright, with banded eyes, and as cease- 
lessly turning her wheel (6637ff.). Her mansion is de- 
scribed picturesquely as situated on a mighty rock in the 
midst of the sea (6657ff.). Her instability is symbolized by 
a series of contrasted pictures: the two streams, the two 
halves of her house, and later the two tuns of Jupiter. 
Her capriciousness is illustrated by the stories of various 
princes, both ancient and modern, who fell from the high 
estate to which they had been raised — an interesting antici- 
pation by over half a century of Boccaccio’s De Casibus, 
It should be noted, however, that powerful as Fortune 
seems to be, Jean de Meung does not identify her with any 
pagan or Christian deity; he says expressly: 

The idea of the unstableness and changeableness of the world is 
lengthily developed, 11. 1412-1473. (See Morris’s and Skeat’s Speci- 
mens, II, pp. 117-119.) Skeat makes no mention of these similarities. 
For a gorgeous description of the wheel of Fortune, see Morte Arthure 
(E.E. T. S.), 11. 3260-67. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


207 


D ^autre part, si est chose expresse, 

Vous faites Fortune deesse, 

Et jusques ou ciel la leves, 

Ce que pas faire ne deves ; 

Quhl n’est mie drois ne raison 

Qu’ele ait en paradis maison; (6649-54) 

The wheel of Fortune had been mentioned by Guillaume 
de Lorris (4590-99), and Jean de Meung has much to say 
about it. ‘^It is continually rolling through his verses,’’ 
to use Skeat’s phrase.^ Two characteristics of the wheel are 
emphasized by Jean; the ceaselessness and rapidity of 
its motion (6068-73, 6637-43), and the impossibility of 
arresting it (7145-48, 7359-62). 

The whole trend of Reason’s discourse with the lover is 
this: It is dangerous to trust Fortune; she is capricious, 
she is unsatisfying. Be wise like Socrates and despise 
anything Fortune can do to you, for 

S’est moult fox qui s’en desconforte, 

Et qui de riens s’en esjoist, 

Puisque deffendre s’en poist: 

Car il le puet certainement 

Mes qu’il le vueille seulement. (6644-48) 

This long sermon of Reason’s seems to have been one of 
Chaucer’s favorite passages. The English poet made con- 
stant use of it and of other parts of Reason’s discourse on 
kindred subjects, as appears from the parallels pointed out 
between the Roman and his work. The most elaborate treat- 

2 Chaucer, II, xxi. Skeat references to the Homan are made to 
Meon’s edition. The corresponding lines in Michel can be determined 
from the table in Appendix A of this book. 


208 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


ment of Fortune occurs in the Book of the Duchess, Troilus 
and Criseyde, the Monkes Tale, and Fortune. The follow- 
ing comparisons have been made between these poems and 
the Roman (or Romaunt) : 

B. Duch. 617-84 (passim), the extended figure of For- 
tune playing a game of chess with her victim. Compare 
RR. 7356ff., from which the English lines clearly are imi- 
tated. (See Skeat, I, p. 478.) 

T. iv. 6-7. Koeppel compares this couplet with RR. 

8790-93 : 

And w’han a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe, 

Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe. 

Tuit cil amis si s’enfoirent 
Et me firent trestuit la moe 
Quant il me virent sous la roe 
De Fortune envers abatu. 

The rhymes are the same, but the situations are not. In 
Troilus, it is Fortune who makes the grimace ; in the Amis’s 
discourse it is the former friends. For comparison with 
this whole first stanza of Book IV, I suggest a stanza from 
MachaulFs Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaigne (the passage 
was clearly inspired by the Roman) : 

Mais quant Fortune, 

La desloial, qui n^est pas a tons une, 

M’ot si haut mis, com mauvaise et enfrune, 

Moy ne mes biens ne prisa une prune ; 

Eins fist la moe, 

Moy renoia et me tourna la joe, 

Quant elle m’ot assis dessus sa roe. 

Puis la tourna, si chei en la boe. (684-691) 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


209 


A little later, in Book IV, Pandarus says, 

Ne truste no wight finden in Fortune 
Ay propretee, hir yeftes been comune. (391-392) 

a sentiment which both Season and the Amis (8774-77) 
express. 

Fortune^ 1-4. The mutability of the world is caused by 
Fortune’s error. Cf. Rom, 5479-83. — Sk. 

9-12. Fortune teaches one to know his true friends. Cf. 
Rom, 5551-52, 5671-8, 5579-81.— Sk. 

32. One good friend left. Cf. RR. 8769-73. — Sk. 

33-40. Fortune clears the eyes and shows up false 
friends. Cf. RR. 5672-77.— Sk. 

In addition we may note that there are numerous refer- 
ences to Fortune in the Knightes Tale, It should be said, 
moreover, that the two short passages cited from the Troilus 
by no means give an adequate representation of the kinship 
of Pandarus and Reason as regards fortune. Compare 
particularly Book I, 834-856, which is but the situation of 
L’Amant and Reason over again. There is no hint of this 
in the Filostrato, 

In his conception of Fortune, Chaucer differs from Jean 
de Meung in one important detail : the English poet some- 
times represents Fortune as the executrix of God’s will; 
e. g., T. iii. 617-23, v. 1541-47; Fortune, 65-72. In this 
respect he is doubtless following Boethius.^ 

But that Chaucer made liberal use of the Roman for his 

3 Fortune is also called the sister of Fame (HF. 1547). This is 
one of the bits of evidence on which W. O. Sypherd bases his 
theory that Chaucer ^s goddess of Fame owes many of her traits to 
previous portraits of Fortune, and among them Jean de Meung ^s. 
But Professor Sypherd points out no significant parallels and, to use 


210 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


references to the fickle goddess no one can doubt. Prob- 
ably many more short passages of his that have not been 
discussed owe either their form or their thought to Rea- 
son’s sensible utterances. And on the whole, Chaucer’s atti- 
tude appears to have been that of Jean’s, as Pandarus’s 
is that of Reason’s: Defy Fortune, cease to worry about 
her gifts, do the work you were put here to do. And he 
even goes so far as to suggest that she can be made a use- 
ful ally; 

Happe helpeth hardy man alway. (L. 1773) 

Thynk eek, Fortune, as wel thyselven wooste, 

Helpeth hardy man unto his empryse. (T. iv. 600-1) 

— a more advanced, pragmatic attitude than Jean’s entire 
disregard of Fortune. 

DESTINY, FREE-WILL, AND NECESSITY 

In RR. 18038-18534 Nature delivers a long sermon on 
free-will and necessity. She starts by saying that the ques- 
tion of how free-will can coexist with predestination is not 
one suited for discussion by the laity: 

Mes de soldre la question 
Comment predestination 
De la divine prescience, 

Pleine de toute porveance, 

Puet estre o volente delivre, 

Fort est as gens laiz a descrive, 

Et qui vodroit la chose emprendre, 

Trop lor seroit fort a entendre, 

his own statement, '^resemblances have no cumulative force if there 
is no significance in the separate details.’’ See Studies in Chaucer 
Hous of Fame, pp. 117-122. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


211 


Qui lor auroit neis solues 

Les raisons encontre meues. (18038-47) 

After stating the objections that one might raise by saying 
that if God did not know beforehand what was to happen, 
he would rank no higher than a mortal, she answers them 
with counter-objections. God is perfect and just to all 
men, she says, and free-will does exist. If there were such 
a thing as necessity, men would not work, for they should 
be provided with everything. Clearly man acts by the 
prompting of free-will. Other arguments against free-will 
are considered. But Eeason goes on to show that necessity 
is unreasonable, and in conclusion she proves the freedom 
of the will. What she says at the end of this discourse 
of the power of the stars we shall consider in connection 
with Chaucer’s astrology. 

This long discussion of five hundred lines forms a part 
of Nature’s confession to Genius, the whole being an expo- 
sition of Jean de Meung’s ideas of cosmogony, astronomy, 
and optics.” The poet had difficulty in explaining his 
views, for his mouthpiece. Nature, jumps many a question 
she might logically, as God’s chamberlain,^ be able and be 

4 Nature says that God made her his ^ ^ connestable, ^ ^ his ^^vicaire, 
17719. Chaucer uses the same word — vicaire — to describe Nature, 
PP. 379; but, as Skeat says, our poet was probably following Alanus 
de Insulis. See Skeat ^s note, Vol. I, p. 521. See also V, 94, where 
Skeat compares with A. 2991-93 Nature ^s statement: 

Si gart, tant m^a Diex honoree. 

La bele chaene doree 

Qui les quatre elemens enlace 

Tretous enclins devant ma face. (RR. 17722-25) 

With PP. 380-81 Skeat compares RR. 17898. See also C. 19-22 and 
RR. 20437-40 (Koeppel). 


212 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


expected to expound to Genius. Jean attempts to present 
both sides of the argument, but the reasons he advances 
for believing in free-will are only a little less unconvincing 
than those against it. He virtually admits the intricacies 
that a full discussion of the doctrinal point would involve. 
His advice to anyone attempting to make the matter plain 
to unlettered folk, 

Qui bien voldroit la chose emprendre, 

Qui n’est pas legiere a entendre, 

Ung gros exemple en porroit metre 
As gens laiz qui n ^entendent letre : 

Car text gens vuelent grosses choses. 

Sans grant sostivete de gloses. (18328-33) 

was more easily given than followed. 

Chaucer seems to have been greatly interested in this 
phase of doctrinal theology — the relation of the freedom of 
the will to predestination. In the fourth book of TroiluSy 
the deserted knight distracts himself for a hundred and 
twenty-one lines (958-1078) by trying to analyze the di- 
verse opinions of the cunning clerks that have written for 
and against predestination. But Troilus, fatalist that he is 
at all times, argues himself into believing finally that 

thus the bifalling 

Of thinges that ben wist bifore the tyde. 

They mowe not been eschewed on no syde. 

The conclusion that 

A1 that comth, comth bv necessitee 

agrees with the conclusion we should expect Troilus to 
reach: but that the poet was making this little digression 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


213 


on his own account and rather forgot his situation (for 
on what other grounds shall we explain the part line, ‘‘now 
herkne, for I wol not tarie,’’ 1029?) is evidenced by the 
fact that there is no real occasion for the discussion here. 
It is entirely lacking in the Filostrato. To adapt the dis- 
cussion to Troilus the poet so arranges his arguments that 
free-will is denied. Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meung 
argued that freedom of the will is granted every human 
creature. But we cannot say that Chaucer believed in 
predestination simply because he represents Troilus as so 
believing. The humorous application of destiny and 
prescience to the fox’s evil designs on Chanticler (B. 
4405ff.) appears to be satire on the belief of St. Augustine 
and Bradwardine in fore-ordination. The Nonne Freest, 
who is telling the narrative, declares that he cannot enter 
upon the question that has been disputed by an hundred 
thousand men — 

Whether that goddes worthy forwiting 
Streyneth me nedely for to doon a thing, 

(Nedely clepe I simple necessitee) ; 

Or elles if free choys be graunted me 
To do that same thing, or do it noght. 

Though god forwoot it er that it was wroght . . . 

I wol not han to do of swich matere ; 

for his tale is of a fox. By implication, then, if not by 
direct statement, Chaucer would seem to be making fun 
of the doctrine he so elaborates in the Troilus, or at least 
of the expounders of it. 

There is no direct evidence to prove what Chaucer really 
thought of the matter. He seems to have had no more than 


214 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


an intellectual interest in it; and once he had presented 
both sides of the question (as in Boethius and Troilus) he 
was content to let the clerks argue. We are inclined to 
judge, however, that for practical living the poet believed 
in the freedom of man to do right or wrong as he chose. 

For his argument in the Troilus Chaucer appears to have 
owed nothing to the Roman de la Rose (18038-534), which, 
as Langlois says, is only a translation from Boethius. Rea- 
son’s discourse in the Roman may have suggested the put- 
ting of a similar digression in the mouth of Troilus. The 
English poet used his own translation of the De Conso- 
latione.^ Chaucer’s attitude toward Fortune and Destiny 
might be summed up by the old adage, ^‘God helps those 
Avho help themselves.” 

ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY 

Chaucer’s skepticism clearly asserts itself in regard to 
these two sciences.^^ 

Jean’s position was this: ^‘Alquemie est ars veritable” 
(17015), but only worthy men can ever hope to practice 
it successfully. Jean concludes his digression on Alchemy 
by saying that some men may find out how to turn the 
baser metals into pure silver, 

Mes ce ne feroient cil mie 
i Qui euvrent de sophisterie ; 

Travaillent tant cum il vivront, 

Ja Nature n ’aconsivront. (17080-83) 

5 Possibly he took hints from Bradwardine ^s De Causa Dei contra 
Pelagium. See Morley: English Writers, V, p. 197. 

5a Por a succinct statement of his views on alchemy, see Lounsbury, 
II, 501-3; on astrology, II, 497-499. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


215 


Of the stars, Reason (speaking for the poet) says that rea- 
son dominates them, although they have a great influence 
on the life and conduct of man : 

Car autrement puet-il bien estre, 

Que que facent li cors celestre 
Qui moult ont grant pooir sans faille, 

Por que Raison encontre n’aille. 

Mes n ’ont pooir contre Raison, 

Car bien set chascuns sages hon 
Qu’il ne sunt pas de Raison mestre 
N’il ne la firent mie nestre. (18030-37) 

Later on, in an interesting passage Reason admits that 
the stars may be crossed and that men through the will have 
power to shape and to modify their lives (RR. 18464-79). 

Chaucer’s relation to Jean de Meung in regard to 
alchemy and astrology is significant, and has not been 
pointed out hitherto. Chaucer’s skepticism is an evidence 
of his modernity. Jean’s common sense in admitting that 
Reason is superior to astral influence and in perceiving 
and stating that there is much chicanery in the practice 
of alchemy is not to be overlooked. His views are at least 
in advance of his century. 

Chaucer’s two references to the music of the spheres 
(PF. 59-63 and T. v. 1807-13) are probably taken from 
the Teseide, not from the Roman, 17886-90. The identity 
of the rhymes melody e: harmony e and armonies: melodies 
is possibly a reminiscence of the French poem. 

In L. 2228-30 Chaucer expresses the ^‘Platonic doctrine of 
forms or ideas. ’ ’ Skeat says that Chaucer is here following 
Boethius, who in turn follows Plato. Koeppel cites for 


216 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


comparison a similar passage in the Romany 17666-71, lines 
which Langlois says are imitated from Alanus de Insulis: 
De Planctu Naturae. 

Another passage in the Roman de la Rose, viz., 17698-709, 
which was taken from the De Planctu, is cited by Koeppel 
for comparison with these words of the Eagle in the Hous 
of Fame: 

Geffrey, thou wost right wel this. 

That every kindly thing that is. 

Hath a kindely stede ther he 
May best in hit conserved be ; 

Unto which place every thing. 

Through his kindly enclyning, 

Moveth for to come to. 

Whan that hit is awey therfro. (729-736) 

In the Convito, Treatise III, chap. 3, we find this same 
idea expressed by Dante, who was doubtless following 
Boethius, as was Chaucer. 

DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE 

In the study of Chaucer’s attitude toward dreams the 
following particular parallels between his work and the 


Roman may be noticed : 


T. V. 365-368 

(K) 

ER. 19442-46 

HP. 1-52 

(S) 

19432-47 

11 

(C) 

19116 

12 

(C) 

19143 

15-18 

(C) 

19182-83 (?) 
19144 

24-31 

(C) 

19277 

19280-82 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


217 


33-35 

(C) 

19292-95 

36-40 

(C) 

19329-37 

41-42 

(C) 

19300-301 


To this list we may add for the first time: B. 4112, 
T.v. 1277 (RR. Iff). 

Compare also, for Chaucer ^s discussion, T. v. 358-378; 
B. 4111-4129. 

Guillaume de Lorris accepts the belief that dreams fore- 
tell good and harm to many a man (RR. 1-20). Troilus and 
Chanticler are like Guillaume ; Pandarus and Pertelote are 
among those who 


sayen that in swevenynges, 

Ther nys but fables and lesynges. 

Chaucer in the opening lines of the Hous of Fame clearly 
followed Jean de Meung, as the many close parallels attest. 
The discussion in that part of the French poem is carried 
on by Reason, who, as usual, avoids deciding anything 
definite : 

Ne ne revoil dire des songes, 

S hi sunt voirs, ou s hi sunt mensonges . 

De tout ce ne m’entremetrai, 

Mes a mon propos me retrai. 

Chaucer likewise says; 

For I of noon opinioun 
Nfil as now make mencioun. (HF. 55-56) 

But from other passages we may judge that Chaucer’s 
skepticism extended to dreams as well as to alchemy, astrol- 


(19432) 

(19446) 


218 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


ogy, and predestination. This doubting attitude is im- 
portant to bear in mind when one is considering the sig- 
nificance of the dream-poems. Naturally, it would hardly 
have done for the poet at the beginning of the Hous of 
Fame to have said that he did not believe in dreams. It 
was artistically necessary for him to assume a wondering 
attitude toward them. The fact that Chaucer presents 
Chanticler’s dream as coming true is but another case of 
the poet’s ironic concessions to superstitious readers.® 


HABIT AND NATURAL INSTINCT 

The use of the three examples in the Maunciples Tale 
to show the futility of man’s trying to restrain the nature 
of animals is imitated from the Roman de la Rose. These 
illustrations are of the caged bird (H. 163-174), of the cat 
(175-180), and of the she-wolf (183-186). The example 
of the caged bird appears also in the Squieres Tale (F. 610- 
620), where Chaucer is clearly following Boethius. In the 
Maunciples Tale, however, he had his eye on the French 
poem, but Skeat does not emphasize the fact. 

The parallels are as follows: 

H. 163-174. Skeat says, ‘‘From Boethius. It reappears 
in Le Roman de la Rose, 14888-905. It is interesting to see 
how Chaucer has repeated the passage, and yet so greatly 
varied the form of it. We find, however, that silk and milk 
rhyme in both cases.” But an examination of the passages 
in Boethius and the Roman shows ^why the two English 

6 For Chaucer ’s attitude towards common beliefs implying the 
interposition of supernatural agencies, see Lounsbury, II, 499-500. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


219 


appearances of it vary. In the one case (S. T.) Chaucer 
used the Latin original; in the other (M. T.), the French. 

H. 175-180. From RE. 14984-97, says Skeat. Chaucer 
has varied and reduced his original considerably. 

H. 183-186. From RR. 8512-17. As Skeat observes, these 
lines are taken from a different part of the Roman from 
those about the caged bird and the cat, and are founded on 
a different argument; viz., the perversity of woman’s choice. 

It should be noted that Tyrwhitt anticipated Skeat in 
pointing out these parallels. IMoreover, it might be noted 
that Langlois has found no source for the French passages 
presenting the examples of the cat and the she-wolf. 

In addition to the correspondences cited above I might 
suggest that L. 2446-51 be compared with H. 161-162, and 
both with RR. 14972-75 — passages which express the 
thought that animals will stick to the nature of their kind. 
From the lines in the Legend we may judge that Chaucer 
was interested in the subject of natural instinct and asso- 
ciated it with heredity. Notice also T. i. 218-224 ; especially 
the last couplet : 

Yet am I but a hors, and horses lawe 
I moot enduren, and with my feres drawe. 

The three illustrations in the Maunciples Tale are used 
in much the same way they are used in the Roman. Nature 
says that men and women desire their ancient liberty in- 
stinctively, just as animals obey the nature of their kind 

(RR. 14906-25). The Maunciple says: 

•» 

Alle these ensamples speke I by thise men 
That been untrewe, and no thing by womnien. 

(187-188) 


220 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


This must have been either direct irony or intentional gal- 
lantry on Chaucer’s part, for he knew that the lines in the 
Roman were sandwiched in between two accounts of the 
way in which Venus and Mars disgraced Vulcan — a situ- 
ation very much like that represented in the Maunciples 
Tale, where Phoebus is deceived. The narrator here, too, 
makes the woman, as Jean makes Venus, the chief offender. 

Nature’s statement that men and women love liberty 
is used by Chaucer in another connection — an indebtedness 
that I have not seen pointed out hitherto. In the Franke- 
leyns Tale the narrator discusses the nature of love (F. 
764-790). ^‘This passage is clearly founded on Le Roman 
de la Rose, 11. 10174-10204,” says Skeat. But Chaucer 
had also another part of the French poem in mind. Com- 
pare 

Wommen of kinde desiren libertee. 

And nat to ben constreyned as a thral ; 

And so don men, if I soth seyen shal. (768-770) 

with 

Ansinc sachies que toutes fames, 

Soient damoiseles ou dames, 

De quelconque condicion, 

Ont naturele entencion, 

Qu’el cercheroient volentiers 
Par quex chemins, par quex sentiers 
A franchise venir porroient. 

Car tons jors avoir la vorroient. 

Ausinc vous dis-ge que li hon, etc. 

(14906-14914) 

The idea expressed in F. 164-166 had already been pre- 
sented in the Knightes Tale, A. 1625-26 and Troilns, ii. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


221 


756. These passages have been referred to RR. 9200-9201. 
Skeat notes that lines 792-796 of the Frankeleyns Tale 
were taken from RR. 10199-10204. 


TRUE NOBILITY, OR GENTILESSE 


What Chaucer has to say in his ballade on Gentilesse and 
in the Wife of BatlFs Tale (D. 1109-1164) agrees in the 
main with the views of Boethius, Dante, Guillaume de Lor- 
ris, and Jean de Meung. Compare the following parallels: 


Gentilesse^ st. 1. 

st. 2. 
st. 3. 
W, B. Tale, D. 1158. 
Sqiiieres Tale, P. 483. 


RR. 19614-19 (Skeat) 
19552-67 (Skeat) 
19796-800 (Skeat) 
2093 (Skeat) 
Rom. 2187-2238 (Skeat) 


Skeat refers to the general discussion of gentilesse in the 
Roman, 7315-28 and 19540-19828, but he notes no further 
close correspondences than those listed above. We may 
add, accordingly, the following: 


Gentilesse, 11. 2-4 


12-13 

15-16 




W. B. Tale, D. 1118-24 


1170 


RR. 19644-46 
r 19725-34 
I 19744-59 
19560-67 
19735-38 


But Chaucer differs from Jean de Meung in one im- 
portant respect : the loathly lady in the Wife’s Tale says: 


Thy gentilesse eometh fro god allone, (D. 1162) 

Nature makes no such statement. She says that all men 
are born potentially noble ; but that they must prove them- 
selves by their deeds. How to be noble can be learned 


222 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


from reading and study, and for this reason clerks as a 
class have far more nobility than kings. But Chaucer 
and Jean de Meung agree that wealth and renowned an- 
cestors do not make a man noble and gentle; that a poor 
man may rise to heigh noblesse’’ as easily as a king. 

APOLOGY FOR PLAIN SPEAKING 

In a number of passages in the Canteriury Tales the 
English poet, following Jean de Meung, justifies himself 
for any coarseness in his diction. The more important are : 

A. 725-742, where the poet makes a general apology for 
plain realistic treatment of the stories to follow. 

A. 3171-75, where the poet excuses himself for repeating 
the offensive language of the Miller. 

B. 4450-54, where the Nonne Freest apologizes for record- 
ing the cock’s censure of woman’s counsel. 

H. 208-237, where the Maunciple proceeds to justify his 
use of plain words, particularly the word ^Uemman.” 

Both Chaucer and Jean de Meung base their arguments 
on the words of Plato: ‘‘The wordes mote be cosin to the 
dede,” to use Chaucer’s statement. In A. 725ff. Chaucer 
was imitating the Roman de la Rose, 16097-16132. The 
Nonne Freest ’s apology is taken from the passage immedi- 
ately following in the French poem, 16133-71. The two 
other passages in Chaucer have not as yet been referred to 
the Roman; but the Maunciple ’s justification of himself for 
using the word “lemman” is not unlike Reason’s for using 
the word “coilles,” to which the lover objects (RR. 7730- 
7935). Chaucer’s apology for the Miller is no more than 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


223 


a repetition of the more expanded apology in the General 
Prologue. 

THE FORMER AGE 

In The Former Age Chancer was working over the ma- 
terial of his two favorite authors — Boethius and Jean de 
]\Ieung. The English poet’s indebtedness to the Roman 
for material for this poem has been underestimated. 

Skeat has suggested these parallels : 

PA. 16. ER. 22546, for the word galentyne. 

PA. 41-48, more or less imitated from RE. 9148-51, 9180- 
82, 9190-9191. 

PA. 49. RR. 9194-97. 

To these may be added the following, not hitherto 
recorded : 


7 

RR. 9115-23 

9-10 

9132-35 

11 

9126 

42 

9144-46 

52 

10272-73 

53 

10279-82 

54 

9194-97 

62-64 

9105, 10309-16 


Chaucer has also used other material, notably the Meta- 
morphoses, and has treated all his sources in a fairly free 
fashion. On the whole, he follows Boethius in the first 
part of The Former Age and Jean de Meung in the last. 

Chaucer’s attitude toward marriage and celibacy 

Lounsbury interprets the Prologue to the Wife of Bathes 
Tale and the Prologue to the Monkes Tale as attacks upon 


224 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


celibacy. What he deduces from Harry Bailey remarks 
(B. 3132-3154) is significant: 

This one passage is of itself sufficient proof how modern 
Chaucer was in his way of looking at social questions. It 
exhibits plainly one side of his point of view. There are 
other passages that indicate a view of the same subject from 
another direction. No one, after a careful comparison of all 
of them, can well escape from the conclusion that against 
the doctrine of celibacy there was ever present to the poet^s 
mind one most grave objection. This was the double danger 
with which its practice threatened civilization. If the priest 
was unfaithful to his vows, if he yielded to the temptations 
that lie in wait for all, he was not simply bringing a scandal 
upon his order — he was unsettling the foundations of moral- 
ity. He was placing an obstacle in the way of the upward 
progress of humanity. If he remained faithful to his vows 
— and in this class would necessarily be included the best 
and the purest — the right to propagate the race would 
be cut off from the men most likely to transmit to their 
descendants the highest intellectual and moral qualities. 
It was the ultimate effect of celibacy, not upon the church, 
but upon civilization, that was in the poet’s thought. It is 
for that reason he tells us that the world is lost. It is almost 
impossible to doubt, after reading his words, that he, in 
the fourteenth century, had leaped to the same conclusion 
which modern science has at last painfully demonstrated, 
though it was not permissible for him to express it save 
after a blunt and even coarse fashion.^ 

Miss Cipriani’s view of Chaucer’s attitude toward love 
of kind and, by implication, toward marriage, by no means 
coincides with Lounsbury ’s. She writes : 

Yet, where the infiuenee of Jean de Meung on Chaucer 
Studies in Chaucer, II, p. 529. 


CHAUCER. AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


225 


shows itself most emphatically is in the ethical and religious 
traits which distinguish the Troilus from the Filo strata. 
The attitude in the treatment of the subject-matter is iden- 
tical; i. e., love, its delights and its drawbacks, are fully 
described; but this description leads up to the advice of 
discarding earthly love for the love of Christ, who died for 
us on the cross. ^^Love made God incarnate; love made 
him hang from the cross ; love made him hang from it ; 
love brought him the wound in the side.^^ (RR. 5051-54.) 
To this, of course, may be added the other important pas- 
sage: ‘‘With all your heart and all your soul, I wish that 
you should love the gentle lady; when love incites you to 
love her, you must love her with love. Love, therefore, the 
Virgin Mary. Through love wed yourself to her. Your 
soul wants no other husband. Through love wed yourself 
to her,’’ etc. (RR. 5107-5119.) 

In this religious and ethical attitude, which it seems to 
me Chaucer and Jean de Meung have most markedly in 
common, not only in the Troilus, but through all of Chau- 
cer’s works, the difference between the English poet and the 
two great Italians is most markedly shown.^ 

In particular. Miss Cipriani cites for comparison with 
stanzas 263 and 264 of the last book of the Troilus these 
lines from the Roman: 5335-41, 5019-24, 5045, 5051-58, 
5115-19. With the exception of the first reference, all are 
included in a longer passage (5018-5119), which Meon, 
Marteau, and Langlois reject.^ Langlois writes that, al- 
though this interpolation is to be found in more than a 
score of MSS., most of them of the late fourteenth century, 

8 Studies in the Influence of the Bornan de la Bose on Chaucer , 
p. 575. 

9 See Meon, II, p. 19; Marteau, II, p. 393; Langlois: Les manu- 
scrits, etc., p. 425. 


226 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


‘4a langue (de cette interpolation) et la rime different 
absolument de celles de Jean de Meung/’ This scholar 
might also have added that this extended definition of love 
in the form of a litany is hardly in the manner of Jean de 
Meung. Granted even that this passage appeared early 
enough in the fourteenth century for Chaucer to have 
been familiar with it before he wrote the Troilus, the 
parallels cited by Miss Cipriani from the Roman are not 
close enough to be of any special significance. The whole 
passage is lacking in the English Romaunt of the Rose. 
Moreover, her general conclusions as to Jean de Meung ’s 
attitude toward earthly love and his advice to his readers 
to discard earthly love for the love of Christ must be 
thrown out as incorrect, her whole contention resting on a 
spurious passage. Even a hasty reading of the last half 
of the Roman will reveal Jean in an entirely other light: 
in many places he emphasizes man’s duty to procreate and 
to preserve his species.^^ Furthermore, he has something 
definite to say on celibacy and vows of chastity : 

S’il [i. e., God] vuet donques que virge vive 
Aucuns, por ce que miex le sive, 

Des autres por quoi nel ’ vorra ? 

Quele raison Fen destorra? 

Done semble-il qu’il ne li chausist 
Se generacion fausist. 

Qui voldra respondre, respoingne, 

Ge ne sai plus de la besoingne : 

Viengnent devin qui en devinent, 

Qui de ce deviner ne finent. (20551-20560) 

10 Compare, for instance, the long sermon of Genius, 11. 20437ff. 
See also Chapter V, note 8. 


CHAUCEK AND THE KOMAN DE LA KOSE 


227 


Marteaii^^ calls attention to the play on words in the last 
four lines of the passage, reminds us of Jean^s ‘‘satire 
virulente centre la subtilite du clerge en niatiere de 
dogmes,’’ and says in conclusion, “Le veritable sens de ce 
passage, voile sous une fine ironie, serait plutot : ‘ Je laisse 
les theologiens s’user a debrouiller cette enigme, s’ils le 
peuvent, car ils s’epuisent en vains efforts/ Aussi avions- 
nous traduit tout d^abord: 

A TEglise laissons le soin, 

S’elle peut, d’eclaircir ce point/’ 

In 11. 20561ff. Genius says that it was never Nature’s inten- 
tion that mortals should “lie barren in cold sterility”: 

» 

Mes cil qui des grefes n’escrivent. 

Par qui les mortex tous jors vivent, 

Es beles tables precieuses 
Que Nature, por estre oiseuses, 

Ne lor avoit pas aprestees, 

Ains lor avoit por ce prestees 
Que tuit i fussent escrivans. 

Cum tuit et toutes en vivans. (20561-20568) 

The poet unmistakably through the mouth of Nature’s 
priest defines his position with respect to this point of 
dogma; and his position is not very far from Chaucer’s. 
But the English poet was philosopher and economist enough 
to recognize and to insist on the institution of marriage as 
the great steadier of society. He is not at one with the 
French poet when Jean makes serious attacks on marriage 
and paints in glowing colors a world of unrestraint and 


11 Vol. IV, note 61, p. 403, 


228 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


free love. Chaucer’s satire on women and his uncompli- 
mentary allusions to the married state are nothing more 
than the conventional attitude of fourteenth century wits 
toward the sex.^“ 

Kittredge ’s recent study of the Marriage Group of Tales 
in the Canterbury collections^ furnishes strong evidence 
against any theory which would make Chaucer a woman- 
liater and an advocate of bachelorship. ^‘The cynicism of 
the Merchant's Tale is ... in no sense expressive of 
Chaucer ’s own sentiments, or even of Chaucer ’s momentary 
mood. The cynicism is the Merchant’s. It is no more 
Chaucer’s than lago’s cynicism about love is Shake- 
speare ’s.’’^^ ^‘The Franklin’s praise of marriage is sin- 
cere. ... It was the regular theory of the Middle Ages 
that the highest type of chivalric love was incompat- 

12 If we reject Miss Cipriani ’s general conclusion as to the purpose 
of the Troilus, we still have to account in some way for the appar- 
ently religious character of the ending of the poem. A satisfactory 
explanation and one that does not make Chaucer a teacher of the 
doctrine of asceticism and celibacy can be found if we but recall the 
poet’s literary interests at the time he was writing the Troilus, Boc- 
caccio’s Teseide furnished the stanzas describing how Troilus after 
his death was carried to the heavens of bliss, where he realized that 
'‘blinde lust . . . may not laste. ” The Be Consolatione Philo- 
sopliiae, I am inclined to think, furnished the general idea of T. v. 
1835-48. The hortatory ending of the Latin treatise — the translation 
of which Chaucer was probably working on at the very time he was 
writing the Troilus — might easily have suggested the lines beginning, 
^ ^ O yonge f resshe f olkes. ’ ’ The lines should not be taken to indicate 
that Chaucer w^as pleading for love to God and against ^Hove of 
kind.” A didactic, admonitory close for long poems was a medieval 
convention. In the Troilus, Chaucer was merely follov/ing this con^ 
vention. 

Chaucer *s Discussion of Marriage, Mod. Phil., April 1912. 

Op, dt., p. 451, 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


229 


ible with marriage, since marriage brings in mastery, and 
mastery and love cannot live together. This view the 
Franklin boldly challenges. Love can be consistent with 
marriage, he declares. Indeed, without love (and perfect, 
gentle love) marriage is sure to be a failure. The difficulty 
about mastery vanishes when mutual love and forbearance 
are made the guiding principles of the relation between 
husband and wife.’’ The conclusion reached by Professor 
Kittredge as stated in the last paragraph of his article is 
this: ^^We may not hesitate ... to accept the solution 
which the Franklin offers as that which Geoffrey Chaucer 
the man accepted for his own part. Certainly it is a solu- 
tion which does him infinite credit. A better has never 
been devised or imagined.” 

We may conclude, then, that Miss Cipriani not only is 
mistaken in her estimate of Jean de Meung’s purpose but 
incorrectly correlates his work with Chaucer’s. It is true 
that both men thought seriously on many subjects worthy 
of careful reflection, that both were in advance of their 
times; but with this difference: Jean de Meung was just 
far enough ahead of his age to be pessimistic, cynical, de- 
structive; Chaucer was modern enough to be optimistic, 
charitable, constructive. 


CONCLUSION 

A recapitulation of the passages in Chaucer, which we 
may in all reason suppose to have been directly imitated 
from the Roman de la Rose, furnishes us the following 
partial data on the English poet’s debt to the two French 
poets : 


230 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Chaucer, RR., 

lines. lines. 

II. Allusions to historical and legendary persons 


and places 123 194 

III. Mythological allusions 22 40 

IV. Devices of style 45 71 

V. Descriptions and situations 392 524 

VI. Proverbs and proverbial expressions 57 77 

VIT. Philosophical discussions 215 497 


Total 854 1,403 


Of the lines used from the Roman, 379 are from the part 
written by Guillaume de Lorris, or about 27 per cent of the 
total. As Guillaume’s portion is less than one-fifth of the 
whole poem, it will be seen that the proportional number 
of lines borrowed from him is as large as that from Jean. 
But of these over 300 were used in the characterization of 
Troilus and Pandarus. Moreover, of the 1,403 lines used 
from the Roman, 43 are from the section corresponding to 
fragment A of the Romaunt; 388 to fragment B, and 16 to 
fragment C. Statistics and figures are very unsafe to fol- 
low closely in determining so delicate a question as relative 
amount of literary borrowing, and they should not be 
relied on solely ; but in the present instance we may reason- 
ably draw the general conclusion that Lounsbury was 
inexact when he wrote that ‘Hhe Roman de la Rose is 
Chaucer’s favorite work as regards adaptation only so far 
as it is the composition of Jean de Meung.” Nor need we 
hesitate to pronounce Van Laun’s opposing view as equally 
wrong. The figures above do not include lines imitated 
from the Romaunt, unless it is pretty certain that Chaucer 
was also following the original French. Again, they do not 
fully represent what Chaucer owed to Guillaume, for some- 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


231 


times in his later work the English poet copied older lines 
he had written, which in turn were due to the first part of 
the Roman. To Guillaume, then, he was under obligation 
for not a few touches of outdoor description (as in the 
Book of the Duchess^ the Parlement of Foules, and the 
Prologue to the Legend, and for many hints in the char- 
acter of Troilus. Chaucer also took from the first part of 
the Roman some conventional situations and possibly a 
stylistic device or two. 

To Jean de Meung, Chaucer appears to have gone for all 
kinds of allusions and information. We have seen that 
Chaucer used the second part of the Roman as an encyclo- 
pedia of names of persons and places, of proverbs, of philos- 
ophy and metaphysics, of history, of mythology. The long 
discourses of Kaison, L^Amis, La Vieille, Nature, and 
Genius were clearly his favorite passages: Reason ^s elab- 
orately worked-out allegory of fortune, with a discussion of 
every side of the question; the Friend’s discourse on the 
hardships and miseries of poverty, on the delights of those 
good old days when folk lived simply and naturally, on the 
evils that ensued upon the institution of marriage, with 
copious illustrations of domestic tyranny and misery; the 
Duenna’s history of her amours, her picture of the follies of 
women, her stories of famous classical lovers, and her dis- 
closure of the wiles used by some women to entrap men; 
Nature’s discussion of various natural phenomena of the 
earth and heavens, of alchemy, astronomy, free-will, neces- 
sity, destiny, optics, dreams, true nobility and gentility; 
and Genius’s earnest and vigorous exhortation to fecundity, 
and his promise that if men do their duty in this respect 


232 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


they shall be received into a paradise that exceeds in beauty, 
beyond power of words to tell, Mirth’s Garden of the Rose. 
To these five long sermons should be added the autobiogra- 
phy of Faux-Semblant, which furnished Chaucer with 
many details for his characterizations of the Frere and the 
Pardoner and his attacks on corruption in the clergy, al- 
though it is difficult to adduce specific passages to reveal 
the indebtedness. 

In conclusion, briefiy to review Sandras ’s position, we 
see that the French critic was by no means altogether cor- 
rect. His statement that Chaucer betrays a reminiscence 
of the trouvh^e poets on every page, in every line of his 
writings, is acceptable only under the most liberal inter- 
pretation. As well say the same thing of Shakespeare with 
respect to his predecessors and contemporaries. That Chau- 
cer continually found inspiration in the Roman is not to be 
denied. It doubtless furnished him with new ideas and 
with new points of view on old ideas. On many a question 
he may have turned to the poem for guidance. But our 
evidence does not bear out the statement that he was con- 
tent often in his nature descriptions to be the copyist of 
Guillaume. Less than seventy lines of this sort were copied 
from Guillaume, and nearly sixty of these occur in one 
early poem, the Book of the Duchess, 

The only portion of Livy’s Roman history for which 
Chaucer was indebted to Jean de Meung is the story of 
Appius and Yirginius; even there only a score of lines were 
taken over directly from the French — less than one-tenth 
of the whole narrative. 

Sandras ’s statement that Chaucer grew to old age, always 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


233 


under the yoke of imitation and having composed scarcely 
anything but allegorical poems, is inexcusable. As a mat- 
ter of fact, his greatest single poem, Troilus and Criseyde, 
written when he was but little over forty years of age, is 
not an allegorical piece ; and it surpasses in number of lines 
all of his verse before 1386, including the Book of the 
Duchess, Parlement of Foules, Hous of Fame, and the 
Legend. As for its being written under the yoke of imita- 
tion, a comparison with its sources refutes the charge. Even 
the four dream poems, conventional as their setting may be, 
are in their general purport and in many details original. 
The dream frame-work is all they have in common with the 
Roman, and that device was not original with Guillaume. 
I am not willing to admit with Sandras that by the school 
of Guillaume de Lorris Chaucer’s taste was formed or 
debased (alteree). Kather was that school a point of de- 
parture for him. As Legouis says, Chaucer was ‘‘enclin a 
sourire des affectations prolongees et du lyrisme qui se 
guinde.” Chaucer does not fill his dream poems with 
colorless, shadowless allegorical personages; there is an 
abundance of life, movement, reality, in the Parlement, the 
Hons of Fame, and the Prologue to the Legend. But it was 
not so much at the extravagances of Guillaume as at those 
of his followers — Machault, Deschamps, Froissart — that the 
English poet smiled. His ten years of apprenticeship be- 
tween the Book of the Duchess and his next dream poem 
were not years of poetic stagnation ; and it is impossible to 
think of Chaucer writing the Parlement, Hous of Fame, 
and Prologue to the Legend in serious rivalry of foreign 
models. I feel convinced that in these poems he had a 


234 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


deeper, subtler purpose, even though at present I cannot 
say just what it was. 

For Jean de Meung Chaucer seems to have had a con- 
tinued respect. He freely used in the BooU of the Duchess 
Reason’s discourse on the fickleness of fortune, and gives 
evidence even in that early poem of having read large por- 
tions of the BomaUy if not the whole of it. Moreover, the 
second part of the Roman de la Rose, one feels, exerted in 
a hundred subtle ways an influence on Chaucer that is not 
demonstrable by the parallel passage method. There was 
an undeniable sympathetic relationship between Jean de 
Meung and the English poet that manifests itself unmis- 
takably in their critical, inquiring attitude toward life and 
its problems, in their tendency to visualize abstractions, in 
their significant blending of medievalism and modernism, 
of romanticism and realism. Various sections of Jean’s 
work interested Chaucer deeply at various times ; but 
our examination in chapter seven of the resemblances and 
differences between the two men has made it clear that the 
buoyant English pupil was not content to let his cynical 
French master do his thinking for him. It was not in the 
school of Jean de Meung but outside of school hours that 
Chaucer’s ‘^esprit” was fashioned. For Jean, no jocund 
day stood tip-toe on the misty mountain-tops. Can the same 
be said of Chaucer? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The works enumerated below Avere all consulted and 
made use of in the preparation of this book. The list is not 
exhaustive, but includes what has been of the most serv- 
ice. 

Alanus de Insults. Planctus Naturae and Anticlaudi- 
anus. In Vol. II of Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets 
(Records Series). Ed. by T. Wright. 

— The Complaint of Nature, by Alain de Lille. Trans. 

from the Latin by Douglas Moffat. Yale Studies in 
English^ 1908. 

Ballerstedt^ Erich. Ueber Chaucers Naturschilderungen. 
Gottingen, 1891. 

Bech, M. Quelle und Plan der Legende of Good Women. 
Anglia, Vol. V. 

Bourdillon^ F. W. The Early Editions of the Roman de 
la Rose. London, 1906. (Printed for the Bibliograph- 
ical Society.) 

Chaucer. The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 
Edited ... by Walter W. Skeat. Six volumes; Ox- 
ford. Vols. I-V, 2d ed., 1899-1900 ; Vol. VI, 1894. 

— Chaucerian and Other Pieces, being a Supplement to the 

Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Edited by Wal- 
ter W. Skeat. Oxford, 1897. 

Cipriani, List. Studies in the Influence of the Romance of 
the Rose on Chaucer. Puil. Mod, Lang, Assoc., 1907. 
Classical Authors. Teubner edition of Virgil, Ovid, Hor- 
ace, Livy, etc. 

Const ans, L. Chrestomathie de Fancien francais. Paris, 
1906. 


235 


236 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Dodge, K. E. Neil. A Sermon on Source-Hunting. Mod. 
Phil., October, 1911. 

Galpin, S. L. Fortune’s Wheel in the Homan de la Rose. 

Puhl. Mod. Lang. Assoc., VoL XXIV. 

Gayley, C. M. Classic Myths. Boston, 1911. 

Goddard, H. C. Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women. Jour. 

of Eng. and Germ. Phil., October, 1908 ; January, 1909. 
Godefroy, F. Dictionnaire de I’ancienne langue frangaise. 

Eight volumes. Paris, 1881-94. 

Gower, John. The Complete Works of John Gower. 
Edited by G. C. Macaulay. Four volumes. Oxford, 
1899-1902. 

Haeckel, W. Das Sprichwort bei Chaucer. {Erlanger 
Beitrdge, viii.) Erlangen, 1890. 

Hammond, E. P. Chaucer: a Bibliographical Manual. New 
York, 1908. 

Heinrich, Fritz. Ueber den Stil von G. de Lorris und J. 
de Meung. In Ausgaien und Ahhandlungen aus dem 
Geiiete der roman, philologie. Part XXIX. Marburg, 
1885. 

JoRET, Charles. La Rose dans I’antiquite et au moyen 
age. Paris, 1892. 

JuBiNAL, A. Jongleurs et Trouveres. Paris, 1835. 
Kaluza, Max. Chaucer und der Rosenroman. Berlin, 
1893. 

— The Romaunt of the Rose, from the Glasgow MS., paral- 

lel with its original, Le Roman de la Bose. Part I. 
Chaucer Soc. Puhl., 1891. 

Kittredge, G. L. Chaucer’s Medea and the Date of the 
Legend of Good Women. Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc. 
Vol. XXIV. 

— On the Romaunt of the Rose. Vol. I in Studies and 

Notes in Philology and Literature. Boston, 1892. 

— Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage. Mod. Phil., April, 

1912. 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


237 


— Cliauceriana. Mod. Phil., April, 1910. 

King Horn. Edited by Joseph Hall. Oxford, 1901. 
Koeppel. Chauceriana. Anglia, (1892). 

— Chaucer and Albertanus Brixiensis. In Archiv f ur das 

Studium der neueren Sprache. Vol. 86. 

Langlois, Ernest. Origines et sources du Koman de la 
Rose. Paris, 1890. 

— Les manuscrits du Roman de la Rose. Lille-Paris, 1910. 
Legouis^ Emile. Geoffroy Chaucer. {Les grands ecrivains 

Grangers.) Paris, 1910. 

Lounsbury, T. R. Studies in Chaucer. Three volumes. 
London, 1892. 

Lowes, J. L. The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women. 
Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc. Vols. XIX, XX. 

— The Date of Chaucer ^s Troilus and Criseyde. Puhl. Mod. 

Lang. Assoc., 1908. 

Machault, Guillaume de. CEuvres de Machault. Edited 
by Tarbe. Paris-Rheims, 1849. 

— CEuvres. Edited by Hoeplfner. ( Soc. des anc. textes 

frang.) Vol. I. 

Marie de Prance. Lais. Edited by Warnke. 1900. 

Mead, W. E. The Prologue of the Wife of Bath’s Tale. 
Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 1901. 

— The Squyr of Lowe Degre. Edited by AVilliam E. Mead. 

Boston, 1904. 

Neilson, W. a. Origins and Sources of the Court of Love. 
Vol. VI in Studies and Notes in Philology and Litera- 
ture. Boston, 1899. 

New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. 
Edited by J. A. H. Murray and H. Bradley. Oxford, 
1884, etc. 

Paris, Gaston. Mediaeval French Literature. (In the 
Temple Primers.) London, 1903. 

Paris-Langlois. Chrestomathie du Moyen Age. Edited 
by G. Paris and E. Langlois. 4th ed. Paris, 1904. 


238 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Owl and the Nightingale. Edited by John Edwin Wells. 
Boston, 1909. 

Petit de Julleville. Histoire de la langue et de la litera- 
ture francaise. Paris, 1878-1900. (Langlois gives an 
account of the Roman de la Rose in Vol. II, pp. 105- 
160.) 

Publications de la Societe des Anciens Textes franqais. 
Paris, 1875 — 

Ritson, J. Ancient Engleish Metrical Romancees. Edited 
by J. Ritson. Three volumes. London, 1802. 

Roman de Guillaume de Dole, public . . . par G. Servois. 

(In Societe des anciens textes frangais.) Paris, 1893. 
Roman de la Rose. Edited by Francisque Michel. Two 
volumes. Paris, 1864. 

— Edited by P. Marteau. Five volumes. Orleans, 1878-80. 
Romance of the Rose. Englished and edited by F. S. 

Ellis. {Temple Classics.) London, 1900. 

Root, Robert K. Chaucer’s Legend of Medea. Publ. Mod. 
Lang. Assoc. Vol. XXIV. 

Rutebeuf. (Euvres completes. Edited by A. Jubinal. 
Three volumes. Paris, 1874. 

Sandras, Etienne Gustave. Etude sur G. Chaucer con- 
sidere comme imitateur des trouveres. Paris, 1859. 
Specimens of Early English. Vol I edited by Morris; 

Vol. II edited by Morris and Skeat. Oxford, 1898. 
Sykes, Fred Henry. French Elements in Middle English. 
Oxford, 1899. 

Sypherd, Wilbur Owen. Studies in Chaucer’s Hous of 
Fame. Chaucer Soc. PuM.^ 1907. 

Tatlock, j. S. P. The Development and Chronology of 
/ Chaucer’s Works. Chaucer Soc. Puhl., 1907. 

Ten Brink, B. Chaucer: Studien zur Geschichte seiner 
Entwicklung. Munster, 1870. 

— Early English Literature, Vol. II. Translated from the 

German by W. Clarke Robinson. New York, 1892. 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA BOSE 


239 


Warren^ F. M. On the Date and Composition of Guil- 
laume de Lorris^s Eoman de la Rose. Fubl, Mod. Lang. 
Assoc. ^ 1908. 

Weber, H. Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th 
centuries. Edited by H. Weber. Three volumes. 
Edinburgh, 1810. 

Young, Karl. Development of the Troilus and Criseyde 
Story. Chaucer Soc. Puhl.y 1908. 


APPENDIX A 


Comparative Table of Meon’s, MictiEL^iS^ and IMarteau’s 
Numbering of the Lines of the Roman de la Rose 


Michel 

Meon 

Marteau 

Michel 

Meon 

Marteau 

100 

100 

102 

2700 

2700 

2776 

200 

200 

210 

2800 

2800 

2882 

300 

300 

310 

2900 

2900 

2982 

400 

400 

410 

3000 

3000 

3094 

500 

500 

510 

3100 

3100 

3196 

600 

600 

612 

3199 

3200 

3306 

700 

700 

712 

3300 

3300 

3410 

800 

800 

822 

3400 

3400 

3514 

900 

900 

924 

4100 

3500 

3618 

1000 

1000 

1024 

4199 

3600 

3722 

1100 

1100 

1130 

4299 

3700 

3826 

1200 

1200 

1230 

4399 

3800 

3926 

1300 

1300 

1340 

4499 

3900 

4032 

1400 

1400 

1440 

4599 

4000 

4132 

1500 

1500 

1552 

4699 

4100 

4318 

1600 

1600 

1652 

4799 

4200 

4418 

1700 

1700 

1760 

4903 

4300 

4522 

1800 

1800 

1860 

5003 

4400 

4622 

1896 

1900 

1960 

5205 

4500 

4722 

2000 

2000 

2068 

5305 

4600 

4822 

2100 

2100 

2176 

5405 

4700 

4922 

2200 

2200 

2276 

5505 

4800 

5026 

2300 

2300 

2376 

5605 

4900 

5126 

2400 

2400 

2476 

5705 

5000 

5226 

2500 

2500 

2576 

5795 

5100 

5316 

2600 

2600 

2676 

5905 

5200 

5426 


240 


Michel 

6005 

6105 

6205 

6311 

6411 

6512 

6612 

6711 

6812 

6912 

7012 

7112 

7212 

7312 

7412 

7512 

7611 

7711 

7813 

7913 

8014 

8114 

8214 

8313 

8413 

8513 

8613 

8713 

8813 

8912 

9011 

9111 

9211 

9311 


CHAUCEE AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


241 


Meon 

Marteau 

Michel 

Meon 

Marteau 

5300 

5526 

9411 

8700 

8992 

5400 

5626 

9511 

8800 

9092 

5500 

5726 

9611 

8900 

9192 

5600 

5826 

9711 

9000 

9292 

5700 

5938 

9810 

9100 

9396 

5800 

6038 

9910 

9200 

9496 

5900 

6138 

10008 

9300 

9596 

6000 

6242 

10110 

9400 

9696 

6100 

6342 

10212 

9500 

9800 

6200 

6448 

10312 

9600 

9904 

6300 

6552 

10416 

9700 

10012 

6400 

6652 

10515 

9800 

10112 

6500 

6756 

10615 

9900 

10212 

6600 

6860 

10715 

10000 

10312 

6700 

6960 

10814 

10100 

10420 

6800 

7060 

10914 

10200 

10520 

6900 

7160 

11014 

10300 

10620 

7000 

7260 

11114 

10400 

10726 

7100 

7360 

11219 

10500 

10832 

7200 

7460 

11329 

10600 

10946 

7300 

7564 

11429 

10700 

11046 

7400 

7664 

11529 

10800 

11146 

7500 

7764 

11633 

10900 

11250 

7600 

7864 

11730 

11000 

11350 

7700 

7964 

11830 

11100 

11450 

7800 

8064 

11930 

11200 

11550 

7900 

8168 

11991 


11617 

8000 

8272 

12028 

11300 

11654 

8100 

8372 

12094 


11722 

8200 

8476 

12128 

11400 

11754 

8300 

8576 

12229 

11500 

11854 

8400 

8676 

12329 

11600 

11954 

8500 

8784 

12431 

11700 

12056 

8600 

8888 

12534 

11800 

12156 


242 

Michel 

12635 

12734 

12834 

12934 

13033 

13134 

13234 

13335 

13436 

13536 

13636 

13737 

13837 

13937 

14037 

14137 

14237 

14337 

14437 

14537 

14637 

14743 

14843 

14943 

15043 

15143 

15243 

15343 

15443 

15544 

15644 

15744 

15835 

15936 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Meon 

Marteau 

Michel 

Meon 

Marteau 

11900 

12256 

16036 

15300 

15722 

12000 

12356 

16136 

15400 

15830 

12100 

12456 

16235 

15500 

15930 

12200 

12556 

16335 

15600 

16034 

12300 

12660 

16435 

15700 

16134 

12400 

12766 

16534 

15800 

16238 

12500 

12868 

16633 

15900 

16346 

12600 

12976 

16733 

16000 

16454 

12700 

13076 

16834 

16100 

16564 

12800 

13180 

16934 

16200 

16664 

12900 

13280 

17034 

16300 

16764 

13000 

13384 

17134 

16400 

16868 

13100 

13484 

17235 

16500 

16972 

13200 

13584 

17335 

16600 

17078 - 

13300 

13688 

17435 

16700 

17178 

13400 

13794 

17535 

16800 

17282 

13500 

13894 

17635 

16900 

17382 

13600 

13994 

17735 

17000 

17484 

13700 

14094 

17835 

17100 

17584 

13800 

14194 

17935 

17200 

17684 

13900 

14294 

18035 

17300 

17786 

14000 

14394 

18135 

17400 

17886 

14100 

14498 

18235 

17500 

17986 

14200 

14600 

18335 

17600 

18086 

14300 

14700 

18435 

17700 

18186 

14400 

14800 

18535 

17800 

18286 

14500 

14900 

18635 

17900 

18390 

14600 

15000 

18735 

18000 

18490 

14700 

15100 

18835 

18100 

18590 

14800 

15200 

18935 

18200 

18690 

14900 

15300 

19035 

18300 

18790 

15000 

15410 

19135 

18400 

18890 

15100 

15514 

19235 

18500 

18990 

15200 

15618 

19335 

18600 

19090 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


243 


Michel 

Meon 

Marteau 

19433 

18700 

19190 

19533 

18800 

19290 

19633 

18900 

19394 

19733 

19000 

19494 

19832 

19100 

19594 

19932 

19200 

19694 

20032 

19300 

19794 

20132 

19400 

19894 

20232 

19500 

19994 

20332 

19600 

20098 

20432 

19700 

20202 

20532 

19800 

20308 

20632 

19900 

20408 

20732 

20000 

20512 

20832 

20100 

20612 

20932 

20200 

20712 

21032 

20300 

20816 

21132 

20400 

20916 


Michel 

Meon 

Marteau 

21232 

20500 

21016 

21332 

20600 

21116 

21432 

20700 

21216 

21532 

20800 

21316 

21632 

20900 

21416 

21732 

21000 

21520 

21832 

21100 

21622 

21932 

21200 

21716 

22032 

21300 

21816 

22132 

21400 

21916 

22232 

21500 

22016 

22332 

21600 

22130 

22432 

21700 

22230 

22543 

21800 

22330 

22643 

21900 

22430 

22779 

22000 

22534 

22777 

22074 

22608 


MichePs careless editing is the cause of the confusion of 
the numbering of the last two hundred lines. His lines 
22773-22817, which are misplaced, should follow 1. 22741 


APPENDIX B 


Table showing corresponding lines in Ellis’s translation 
of the Roman de la Rose, the Middle English Romaunt of 
the Rose, and Marteau’s edition of the original French 
text. 


Marteau 

Ellis 

Romaunt 

Marteau 

Ellis 

Romaunt 

100 

99 

104 

2000 

2004 

1981 

201 

195 

201 

2105 

2107 

2113 

300 

298 

300 

2200 

2200 

2228 

400 

398 

400 

2300 

2301 

2332 

500 

498 

502 

2402 

2404 

2435 

600 

599 

597 

2503 

2520 

2546 

700 

697 

697 

2600 

2613 

2648 

803 

809 

793 

2700 

2722 

2758 

899 

904 

883 

2800 

2829 

2888 

999 

988 

985 

2900 

2926 

2998 

1100 

1107 

1085 

3000 

3024 

3112 

1200 

1207 

1188 

3100 

3124 

3214 

1300 

1306 

1280 

3200 

3225 

3328 

1400 

1409 

1377 

3300 

3324 

3430 

1500 

1506 

1474 

3400 

3423 

3536 

1600 

1612 

1570 

3500 

3526 

3648 

1700 

1712 

1676 

3601 

3627 

3753 

1730 

1740 

1705 

3700 

3726 

3870 

End of Fragment A of the 

3800 

3902 

3830 

3938 

3998 

4106 

Komaunt. 

1800 

1809 

1768 

4000 

4100 

4039 

4141 

4196 

4328 

1899 

1910 

1868 

4203 

4234 

4432 


244 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


245 


Here ends the work of Guil- 
laume de Lorris. The next 
eighty lines in Marteau and 
Ellis give a sort of conclu- 
sion to Guillaume’s part of 
the Roman. They are not 
translated in the Romaunt, 
and are found in only one 
or two manuscripts. 


Marteau 

Ellis 

Romaunt 

4291 

4321 

4433 

4400 

4439 

4566 

4500 

4550 

4671 

4599 

4643 

4791 

4700 

4742 

4924 

4800 

4844 

5050 

4900 

4952 

5176 

5000 

5058 

5300 

5100 

5157 

5422 

5200 

5254 

5560 

5300 

5366 

5684 

5396 

5470 

5810 

End of Fragment 

B of the 

Romaunt. 



5500 

5567 


5600 

5670 


5700 

5767 


5800 

5864 


5900 

5959 


6000 

6064 


6100 

6166 


6200 

6267 


6300 

6376 



Marteau 

6400 

6500 

6600 

6700 

6801 

6900 

7000 

7100 

7200 

7300 

7400 

7500 

7600 

7700 

7800 

7901 

8000 

8100 

8200 

8300 

8400 

8500 

8603 

8700 

8800 

8901 

9000 

9100 

9200 

9300 

9400 

9500 

9600 

9701 


Ellis 

6474 

6582 

6682 

6786 

6889 

6988 

7096 

7194 

7288 

7382 

7479 

7580 

7680 

7782 

7883 

7990 

8086 

8188 

8296 

8400 

8497 

8590 

8703 

8801 

8895 

8987 

9088 

9187 

9295 

9395 

9499 

9610 

9719 

9823 


246 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Marteau 

Ellis 

Bomaunt 

9800 

9916 


9900 

10012 


10000 

10120 


10100 

10216 


10200 

10309 


10300 

10407 


10398 

10504 


10500 

10612 


10600 

10706 


10700 

10806 


10800 

10909 


10900 

11005 


11000 

11103 


Here begins Fragment C of 

the Bomaunt, 


11061 

11163 

5811 

11100 

11199 

5846 

11200 

11301 

5944 

11300 

11400 

6048 

11400 

11505 

6148 

11500 

11607 

6248 

11600 

11710 

6344 

11700 

11805 

6430 

11800 

11901 

x6502 

11900 

12002 

6622 

12000 

12101 

6728 

12100 

12202 

6822 

12200 

12298 

6926 

12300 

12397 

7038 

12400 

12495 

7148 

12500 

12596 

7258 

xRR. 11703-728 

are not 

translated 

in the 

Bomaunt. 


Martin 

Ellis Bomaunt 

12600 

12704 

7358 

12700 

12798 

7458 

12800 

12904 

7558 

12900 

13008 

7668 

12932 

13042 

7698 

Here ends 

: Fragment 

C of 

the Bomaunt. 


13000 

13108 


13100 

13209 


13200 

13306 


13300 

13407 


13400 

13507 


13500 

13615 


13600 

13716 


13700 

13812 


13800 

13911 


13900 

14013 


14000 

14110 


14100 

14209 


14200 

14308 


14300 

14410 


14400 

14510 


14500 

14607 


14600 

14709 


14700 

14807 


14800 

14908 


14894 

15004 


15000 

15095 


15100 

15193 


15200 

15302 


15300 

15400 


15400 

15501 


15500 

15602 



Martin 

15600 

15703 

15800 

15900 

16000 

16100 

16200 

16300 

16400 

16500 

16600 

16700 

16800 

16900 

17000 

17100 

17200 

17300 

17400 

17500 

17600 

17700 

17806 

17900 

18000 

18100 

18200 

18300 

18400 

18500 

18600 

18700 

18800 

18900 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 247 


Ellis Bomaunt 

Martin 

Ellis Bomaunt 

15702 

19000 

19118 

15799 

19101 

19227 

15896 

19200 

19324 

15895 

19301 

19425 

16100 

19400 

19528 

16198 

19499 

19625 

16296 

19600 

19730 

16393 

19702 

19834 

16494 

19800 

19930 

16588 

19900 

20038 

16694 

20000 

20138 

16798 

20100 

20242 

16898 

20200 

20342 

17011 

20300 

20444 

17118 

20400 

20543 

17222 

20500 

20644 

17326 

20600 

20743 

17428 

20700 

20838 

17532 

20800 

20939 

17630 

20900 

21038 

17722 

21000 

21140 

17826 

21100 

21248 

17922 

21200 

21350 

18016 

21300 

21454 

18114 

21400 

21560 

18218 

21500 

21658 

18314 



18410 

Ellis does not translate the 

18522 

French 

text beyond line 

18618 

21504 with the exception of 

18716 

the story of Pygmalion, 

18814 

RR. 21593-21964. See his 

18916 

translation, Vol. III. pp. 

19020 

215-227. 



3 


INDEX OF PASSAGES PROM CHAUCER’S WORKS 
AND THE ENGLISH ROMAUNT OP THE ROSE, 
QUOTED OR REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT 


Romaunt of the Rose 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

23-5 

139 

49 

. . . 127, 130n 

57 

131 

60 

131 

61 

....131, 136 

94 

127 

128 

136 

131 

...129, 130n 

175-6 

122 

212 

87n 

333-35 

147 

368 

154 

369ff 

192 

454 

....87n, 93 

496-7 

128 

528-94 

85 

543-4 

148 

546 

91n 

669-72 

134 

715-16 

137 

717 

130n 

819 

87n 

855-6 

89n 

862 

91n 

896-8 

159 

928 

87n 

974 

87n 

1010 

87n 

1013 

87n 

1062-6 

193 

1182ff 

95 

1387-90 

133 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

1214 

87n 

1393 

. . . .130n, 131 

1394 

132 

1399 

132 

1401-4 

132 

1418-29 .... 

130 

1556-57 .... 

87n 

2045-50 

193 

2175-80 

150 

2187-2238 . . . 

221 

2205-12 

41 

2213-15 

150 

2223-8 

150 

2229-38 

150 

2239-46 

150 

2255-70 

151 

2274 

151 

2289-96 

151 

2305-16 

151 

2317-28 

151 

2329-33 

151 

2357-60 

155 

2361-72 

151 

2367-8 

189 

2391-6 

151 

2397-2418 . . . 

151 

2419-33 

152 

2453-78 

152 

2478 

184n 

2480-98 

152 

2523-37 

152 

2545-8 

152 

2553-64 

152 


249 


250 


CHAUCEE AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

2609-12 

152 

2627-40 

152 

2645-70 

152 

2740-42 

186 

2791-2824 

153 

2825-55 

153 

2856-92 

153 

2893-2934 

153 

2899-2900 

153 

5123-4 

192 

5135-54 

156 

5479-83 

209 

5551-2 

...198, 209 

5579-81 

209 

5671-8 

209 

5763-4 

197 

5813-4 

120 

6029-30 

59 

6390-98 

165 

6599-6602 

143 

6613-22 

143 

6807 

186 

6913-19 

143 

7419-20 

. . . 141, 144 

7577-8 

165 

7069ff 

193 

7608-66 

72 

The Compleynt Unto Pite 

92 

51 

Anelicla and Arcite 

20 

96 

146 

137 

269 

75n 

315-6 

180 

323-4 

97 

Book of the 

Duchess 

189-90 

119 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

284-9 

13 

291 

. . 126, 130n 

291-3 

124 

291-433 passim 

. . . 126-127 

295-7 

124 

301-2 

124 

304-5 

. . 124, 130n 

305 

137 

309-11 

125 

317 

124 

318-9 

124 

319 

128 

331 

40 

340-2 

. . . 124, 135 

341 

. .108,130n 

341 

...129, 136 

402-3 

....53, 137 

405-9 

131 

406-9 

124 

410-12 

. . . 124, 136 

414-15 

...125, 131 

416-17 

131 

416-42 

131 

418-20 

124 

419-20 

131 

420 

130n 

421-33 

125 

422 

131 

425 

132 

427-31 

132 

428-33 

134 

434-41 

133 

435-40 

37 

475-6 

146 

497 

147 

497-9 

146 

570 

40 

572 

41 

591-4 

. . . 146, 147 

599-616 

112 

617-84 

208 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


251 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

628-9 

92 

633-37 .... 

93n 

636-41 

93 

654 

108 

660-61 

100 

671 

75n 

717-9 

38, 39 

718 

75n 

724-31 .... 

42 

732-3 

41 

735 

40 

735-7 

54 

738-9 

31n,40 

758-74 .... 

146, 147 

771-2 

146, 147 

791-2 

179 

797-8 

85 

807-9 

139 

821-6 

87 

835-7 

139 

849 

108 

857-8 

147 

858 

146, 90n 

871-2 

148 

874-7 

146, 147 

880-82 

146, 147 

887 

75n 

939ff 

92n 

961-5 

177,178 

981-3 

101 

994-8 

146, 147 

1024-9 

146, 147 

1045 

no 

1057 

33 

1058 

41 

1075-6 

no 

1080-81 

38 

1080-85 

38 

1115 

no 

1121 

41 

1152-4 

146, 148 


(Bef.) (Page) 

1211-20 146, 148 

1237 75n 

1283-4 146, 148 


The Parlament of Foules 

59-63 215 

114 58n 

122 124 

129-30 124, 134, 135 

140 179 

148-51 95 

176-82 114 

190-91 125,134 

190-96 134 

192-6 125 

204-5 135 

204- 10 124, 134 

205- 7 135 

206 135 

207 135n 

211-17 72n 

211-94 136 

261 59n 

266 135 

267 90n 

277 57 and note 

295ff 136 

298-301 89n 

316 20 

330-64 115 

337-64 102 

343 115n 

359 94n 

379 211n 

380-81 211n 

390 135 

456-8 45n 

501 75n 

574 180 


252 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


Boethius de Consolatione 
Philosophiae 

(Ref.) (Page) 

II prose iv :80-82 .... 181 
II prose V :129-31 .... 180 
II met. vi:5-6, 8, 12- 

3, 15-6, 19 26 

II prose viii :31 . . 108, 198 

III prose viii:26 108 

IV prose iv :205-6 .... 182 

V prose iii :125-6 . . . 182n 

V prose iii:127-9 ...182n 

V prose vi:113-4 ...182n 


V prose vi:205 182n 

» 

TKe Former Age 

7 223 

9-10 223 

11 223 

16 223 

41-48 223 

42 223 

49 223 

52 223 

53 223 

54 223 

57-9 55 

62-4 223 

Fortune 

1-4 209 

9-12 209 

17-20 40 

32 209 

33-40 209 

36 120 

65-72 209 

Gentilesse 

1 stanza 221 

2 stanza 221 

3 stanza 221 


(Bef.) (Page) 

11. 2-4 221 

12-13 221 

15-16 221 

Merciles Beaute 

29 75n 

39 75n 

Compleynt of Mars 
126 75n 

Troilus and Criseyde 

Bk. I. 

6 50 

158 137 

218-24 219 

295-301 152 

351 120n 

441 151 

442-6 152, 153 

445-6 153 

447-8 152 

449 183 

537 151 

586-95 154 

612-13 151 

625-30 154 

630-37 190 

638-44 188 

646-51 154 

666-9 154 

675-6 154 

704-7 151 

711-4 154 

715-6 154 

743-5 151 

747-8 184 

752-6 39 

771-3 154 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


253 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

806 

151 

810-12 

. . . . 189, 152 

816-7 

151 

817-9 

150 

818-9 

152 

834-56 

209 

856 

151 

883-9 


890-6 

151 

901-3 

150 

927-8 

141 

928 

142n 

946-52 

Ill 

958 

151 

960-1 

189 

960-2 

151 

969 

96 

1030-3 

150 

1051-4 

154 

1058-60 

154 

1065-71 

154 

1072 

151 

1074 

151 

1076-8 

150 

1080 

151 

1084 

150 

Bk. II 

50-52 

....125, 137 

57-63 

. . . . 152, 154 

60 

151 

160 

150 

167-8 

185 

185-6 

151 

187-9 

150 

193-4 

95 

197-203 

151 

204-7 

150 

436 

50 

537-9 

152 

624-5 

151 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

635-7 

151 

645 

152 

652 

152 

652-8 

152 

698 

152 

715-8 

185 

722-3 

154 

729-32 

157 

754 

99 

756 

. 141, 142, 221 

763 

157 

784 

186 

799-805 . . . . 

157 

809-11 

152 

840 

150 

1027 

190 

1256 

152 

1499-1503 . . . 

151 

1564 

117 

1720-1 

120n 

Bk. III. 

50-56 .... 

152n 

80-84 

152 

92-8 

148 

94-5 

151 

103 

151 

133 

151 

134-47 

151 

274-87 

157 

293-4 

202 

320 

75n 

329 

190, 197 

351-4 

125, 138 

428-34 

151 

547-973 .... 

152 

617-23 

209 

694-5 

171 

725 

57 

786-8 

153 

792-8 

153 


254 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

854 

75n 

900 

75n 

936 

75n 

956 

186 

1035 

186 

1161 

75n 

1167 

75n, 77n 

1212-21 .... 

188 

1254-74 .... 

151 

1255 

59n 

1282 

85n 

1298 

151 

1534-40 .... 

152 

1541-4 

153 

1544-6 

154, 155 

1548-54 .... 

153 

1569-70 .... 

152 

1583-4 

152 

1603 

75n 

1622-4 

190 

1634 

190, 191n 

1646-66 .... 

153 

1716-18 .... 

151 

1716-29 .... 

159 

1718 

151 

1719 

151 

1726-29 .... 

151 

1737-42 .... 

153 

1743ff .... 

151 

1776-8 

151 

1779-81 .... 

151 

1786 

150 

1786-7 

159 

1787 

150 

1789 

150 

1790 

150 

1796-99 .... 

150 

1800-3 

150 

1801 

150 

1802 

159 

1805 

150 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

Bk. IV. 

6-7 

208 

22-4 

50 

24 

51 

106 stanza . . . . 

147 

117 stanza . . . . 

147 

222 stanza . . . . 

46 

391-2 

209 

432-4 

156 

519-20 

94 

586 

75n 

595 

75n 

600-601 

210 

684 

75n 

958-1078 

212 - 

1029 

213 

1305-6 

186 

1356 

95 

1397-8 

75n 

1546 

52 

1553 

46 

1555-82 

157 

1586 

195 

1591 

53 

1654-7 

151 

1699-1701 

152 

Bk. V. 

7 

52 

208 

57 

217-45 

152 

222-4 

152 

263-4 stanza . . 

225 

295-332 

152 

358-78 

217 

363 

75n 

365-8 

216 

426-76 

153 

445 

119 

460-1 

97 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


255 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

515-6 

153 

519-53 

153 

551-2 

154 

574 

151 

638-41 

101 

655 

53 

736-43 

152 

744-9 

152 

813-4 

92n 

882 

75n 

1058-64 

157 

1075-7 

150 

1222 

154 

1277 

217 

1321 

119 

1373-9 

112n 

1482 

119 

1541-7 

209 

1590 

72n 

1695-1701 . . . . 

151 

1807-13 

215 

1828-32 

102 

1835-48 

228 

1849-54 

102 

The House 

of Fame 

1-52 

216 

11 

216 

12 

216 

15-18 

216 

24-31 

216 

33-5 

217 

36-40 

217 

41-42 

217 

55-6 

217 

103-8 

29n 

112-3 

139 

117-8 

38 

137-8 

72n 

239ff 

41 

279-82 

191 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

338-40 . . . . 

191 

343-4 .... 

45n 

363 

75n 

379 

42 

388-96 . . . . 

45 

388-407 . . . 

42 

392 

45,46 

397-404 . . . 

42 

518 

57 

609 

72n 

617 

72n 

668 

72n 

729-36 . . . . 

216 

916-8 

38 

1022 

41 

1183 

78 

1213 

94 

1214-26 ... 

117n 

1257-8 

192 

1271-4 .... 

42,43 

1329-35 . . . . 

117 

1342-53 . . . . 

139, 140 

1387 

90n 

1413-4 

41 

1547 

209 

1571 

... 49 and note 

1647 

137 

1652-4 

139, 140 

1702-12 ... 

142 

1708 

75n 

1710-11 ... 

141 

1732-3 

141 

1758-62 . . . . 

141, 143 

1759-62 ... 

143n 

1761-2 .... 

141 

1780-2 .... 

141 

1789 

49 

1793-5 

141 

1796-9 .... 

143n 

1875 

79 

1935-7 

137 


256 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(Ref.) 


( Page ) 

(Ref.) 

(Page) 

1 960-76 


112 

377-80 . . . . 

65 

1961-76 


102 

400-402 . . . 

65 




410-411 . . . 

72 

Prologue 

to Legend of Good 

475-7 .... 

65 


Women 

• 

507-9 .... 

65 




535 

66 


(a) 


548-51 . . . . 

66 

273-4 . 


11 



292-3 


45 

Legend of Good Women, 

311-2 . 


100 

600 

59n 

326 .. 


193 

609 

119 

529 .. 


100 

613 





655 

93 


(b) 


741 

75n 

29-35 


11 

917-8 

121 

42 ... 


137 

1672 

90n 

73-82 


67 

1715 

108 

75-77 


67 

1747 

90n 

78-80 


67 

1773 

210 

101 .. 


120 

2228-30 . . . . 

215 

125-6 . 


.125, 136 

2250 

52 

127 .. 


99 

2252 

51 

128 .. 


.108, 125 

2434 

107 

132-7 . 


. 125, 136 

2446-51 ... 

219 

139-40 


..125,137 

2497-2500 . 

46 

148-68 


.125, 137 

2493 

81 

153-9 . 


.125, 137 



160-2 . 


85 

Canteroury Tales A, 

169 . . . 


137 

5-6 

137 

171-4 . 


..53, 137 

70-72 . . . . 

150 

215-17 


92n 

90 

137 

226-40 


...63, 67 

99-100 .. 

160 

237-49 


71 

127-135 . . . 

161 

249 .. 


...37, 63 

152 

. . 90n, 91n, 92n 

279-80 


63 

177 

75n 

290 .. 


63 

182 

75n 

311 .. 


71 

253-5 

163 

315-8 


64 

256 

164 

338 .. 


. .59n, 66 

281-2 

107 

338-40 


64 

404 

128n 

352-3 


193 

431-2 .... 

41 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


257 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

461 

168 

475-6 .... 

171 

476 

144, 168 

675 

90n 

701-4 .... 

163 

725-742 .. 

222 

781 

79 

885-8 .... 

119 

1037 

160n 

1037-8 .... 

89n 

1049 

90n 

1053 

137 

1155 


1165 

79 

1510-11 .. 

160n 

1558 

75n 

1570 

75n 

1625-6 .... 

194, 220 

1817 

59n 

1928-9 .... 

85 

1930 

86 

1936-7 .... 

57 

1940 

85 

1940 

59n 

1944-6 .... 

42 

1951 

59n 

1951-2 .... 

58 

1953-4 

. . . 118 and note 

1963-6 .... 

72n 

1999 

141,143 

2083-6 .... 

53 

2087 

121 

2112 

106n 

2166 

90n 

2178 

90n 

2222 

56 

2233-7 ... 

59n 

2235-6 . . . 

59n 

2388-90 ... 

60 

2447-8 .... 

194 

2452 

56 


( Ref.) 

(Page) 

2670 

79 

2921-3 

114 

2991-3 

211n 

3041-2 

194 

3089 

85n 

3152 

195 

3171-5 

222 

3245-6 

91n 

3312-4 

37 

3314 

90n 

3672 

75n 

3756 

75n 

3857 

120 

3974 

91n 

4000 

75n 

4041 

79 

4050 

120n 

4056 

75n 

4099 

79 

4172 

80, 81n 

4192 

75n 

4295 

108 

4321 

195 

Canterbury Tales B 

20-24 

192 

72-4 

42,44 

94 

75n 

114 

196 

211 

120 

295ff 

21n 

360 

93n 

404 

93n 

701-2 

100 

1128 

120n 

1178 

79 

1341 

78 

1360-61 

75n 

1519 

106, 107 

1537 

106 

1559 

94n 


258 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

1581 

....106, 107 

1933 

106n 

1950-61 

116 

1957 

94n 

2120 

75n 

2526 

75n 

3127 

79 

3132-54 

224 

3185-6 

30n 

3253 

31 

3253-7 

31 

3261-2 

31 

3281-4 

31 

3326 

30n 

3379 

30n 

3431-5 

30n 

3537 

30n 

3587 

30n 

3635-6 

30n 

3653-3740 ... 

24 

3655 

24 

3669ff 

26 

3669-70 

27n 

3672-5 

27n 

3677-82 

27n 

3688 

119 

3699-3700 .... 

27 

3701-4 

27n 

3705-8 

27 

3719-24 

27n 

3725-8 

27n 

3732-3 

27n 

3735-9 

27n 

3740 

30n 

3756 

75n 

3773 

30n 

3851-2 

30n 

3900 

119 

3917-56 

28 

3917-22 

29n 

3918 

28, 29 


(Ref.) 

( Page) 

3931 

29 

3934-8 

29n 

3940-5 

29 

3941 

29n 

3947 

29 

3948 

29n 

3949-50 

28, 29 

3953-6 

30n 

3980 

74, 75n 

4004 

75n 

4098 

81 

4098-4101 . . . . 

81 

4111-29 

217 

4112 

217 

4131 

104 

4280 

75n 

4405ff 

213 

4450-4 

222 

4460 

94 

4515-6 

194 

4633 

100 

Canterbury Tales C 

1 

33 

16-18 

40 

19-22 

211n 

32-4 

89 

79 

144 

79-81 

141 

105ff 

35 

135-8 

33 

139-64 

34 

165 

33 

168-9 

33, 34 

184 

33, 34 

203 

33, 34 

207-253 

34 

229-30 

119 

255-76 

33, 34 

262-6 

34 

402 

164 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


259 


(Ref.) (Page) 

407-8 196 

410 197 

411 197 

444 164 

448-51 163 

863 75n 

Canterbury Tales D 

1-3 168f,172 

107-10 174 

115ff 174 

170-1 96 

180-81 197 

182-3 21n 

207-10 168f 

227-8 168f 

229-30 168f 

235ff 172 

248-54 168f 

250-2 168 

25m 168f 

263-6 168 

293-4 168f 

304 90n 

324-7 21n 

333-6 168ff, 177n 

347 75n 

357-61 168ff 

393-6 168ff 

401-2 173 

407-10 168ff 

467-8 168ff 

469-73 168ff 

474ff 173 

483 79 

484 97 

503-14 168ff 

516-22 170 

522-4 168 

534ff 169 

552-4 168 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

555-8 

168f 

572 

75n 

572-4 

168ff 

575 

168flf 

576 

201 

604 

59n, 67 

611 


618 

59 

623-4 

168f 

659 

75n 

662 

169ff 

677-8 

37 

708 

75n 

721-3 

40 

724-6 

40 

816 

173 

901 

120 

929-30 .... 

169ff 

949 

75n 

950 

169ff 

961-3 

169ff 

968 

169 

1067 

105 

1109-64 

221 

1112 

75n 

1118-24 

221 

1158 

221 

1162 

221 

1170 

221 

1184-90 

197 

1187 

197 

1192 

181 

1203-4 

198 

1234 

104 

1451 

164 

1512 

104 

1568 

141, 144 

1690-1 

165 

1961 

75n 

1994-5 

93n, 141 

2001-3 

141, 145 


260 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA BOSE 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

2004b-c .... 

141 

2094-8 

165 

2289 

41 

Cante7'bury Tales E 

118 

192 

880 

93 

999 

75n 

1114 

120n 

1263 

75n 

1335-6 

198 

1341 

119 

1350 

75n 

1421 

75n 

1469-70 

120 

1559-61 

199 

1567 

75n 

1730 

53 

1747-8 

160n 

1777 


1804 

120n 

1854 

75n 

1858 

120n 

1862 

199 

1936 

120n 

2001 

120n 

2031-3 

20n 

2058-64 

93 

2265 

79 

2303-4 

75n 

2322 

94 

2379-80 .... 

45n 

2393 

79 

Canterbury Tales F 

52-5 

125, 138 

57 

99 

95 

41 

164-6 

220 

202-3 

121 

228ff 

36 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

232-3 

36 

281 

160n 

349 

200 

483 

221 

548 

110 

555 

75n 

593 

195 

610-20 

218 

764-6 

194 

764-90 

220 

768-70 

220 

792-6 

221 

795 

110 

925ff 

159n 

927-8 

160n 

951-2 

54,55 

966 

120 

1045 

53 

1132 

75n 

1308 

120n 

1465-6 

119 

1593-4 

119 

Canterbury 

Tales G 

3 

85 

19 

104 

511 

75n 

633 

75n 

698 

75n 

795 

75n 

925 

75n 

1028-9 

45n 

1150 

75n 

1185 

78 

Canterbury Tales H 

14 

75n 

68 

104 

161-2 

219 

163-74 

218 

175-80 

....218, 219 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


261 


(Ref.) 

(Page) 

183-6 

218, 219 

187-8 

219 

208-37 

222 

254-5 

75n 

309ff 

200 

317 

201 

329-31 

201 

332-3 

200 

332-4 

202 

344-5 

202 

355 

200 

357-8 

201 

Canterbury Tales 1 

601 

75n 

711 

104 

714 

85 

Index of Passages From The 

Roman Be La Rose Quoted 

or Referred to in the Text. 

{B. B.) 

(Page) 

Iff 

217 

1-20 

217 

7-10 

14 

24-25 

139 

45-47 

124 

47-54 

125, 138 

53 

125, 131 

55-58 

124,125 

56 

125, 130 

57 

131 

63 

138 

67-73 

125, 138 

67-74 

124 

74-77 

124, 178 

78-80 

138 

88 

127 

100-01 

124, 128 

124-25 

124 

125 

108, 125 


(B. B.) 

(Page) 

129-31 . 

124 

163-4 . . , 

121 

200 .... 

86, 147 

200-02 . 

146 

291-338 , 

146 

306-13 . , 

146 

323-26 . . 

146 

360 .... 

155 

445 .... 

93 

484-85 . . 

128 

487-93 . . 

125, 128 

527 .... 

90n 

529 .... 

91n 

530 .... 

91n 

581 .... 

148 

533 .... 

91n 

537 .... 

146 

539-40 . 

92n 

554 .... 

86 

584 .... 

59n 

619-20 . . 

139 

647-74 . . 

115 

665-68 . . 

124, 125, 128, 134 

675-78 . . 

94 

707-08 . . 

125, 137 

707-10 . . 

124 

709 .... 

128 

747-48 . . 

108 

808 .... 

86 

811 .... 

91n 

844-45 . 

89n 

849 .... 

91n 

850 .... 

91n 

869-988 . 

61 

880-907 . 

67 

888-90 . . 

159 

906-907 . 

68 

918 .... 

86 

964 .... 

86 

1000 .... 

87 

1000-1002 

88 


262 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(B. B.) 

(Page) 

1003 

87 

1005 

87, 89n 

1052-55 

193 

1108-9 

92n 

1164ff 

95 

1199 

87 

1200-1 

92n 

1202 

91n 

1204-5 

146 

1237 

146 

1241-2 

146 

1245 

146 

1246-48 

88 

1251 

146 

1338-68 

113, 114 

1369-72 

132 

1375-76 

124 

1377 

132 

1377-90 

125 

1380-81 

132 

1383-86 

132 

1383-90 

....125, 134 

1401-09 

130 

1413-14 

138 

1447ff 

54, 55 

1535 

87 

1581 

91n 

1689-91 

139 

1884-85 

61 

1891-2032 . . . . 

146 

1973-78 

193 

1987ff 

146 

2004 

79n 

2006-7 

146 

2018-20 

97 

2082-2776 . . . . 

149 

2087-92 

150 

2087-2274 . . . . 

62 

2093 

221 

2103-4 

41 

2109-11 

150 


(B. B.) 

(Page) 

2119-26 

150 

2127-34 

150 

2135-42 

150 

2152-64 

151 

2168 

151 

2185-94 

151 

2185-2221 . . . . 

157 

2199-2212 . . . . 

151 

2213-20 

151 

2221-25 

151 

2247-50 

154, 155 

2250-52 

189 

2250-60 

151 

2251 

154 

2255-56 

189 

2273 

75n 

2275-2568 . . . . 

62 

2281-85 

151 

2286-2310 . . . . 

151 

2311-23 

152 

2343-70 

152 

2370 

183 

2371-84 

152 

2403-14 

.... 146, 148 

2403-14 

152 

2423-28 

152 

2433-42 

152 

2489-92 

152 

2504-18 

152 

2520-43 

152 

2550 

155 

2609 

79 

2613-14 

186 

2655-82 

153 

2683-97 

153 

2698-2729 . . . . 

153 

2719-20 

154 

2729-62 

153 

2862-64 

58 

2977-79 

119 

3001 

119 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


263 


(B. B.) 

(Page) 

3113-14 

107 

4030-31 

58 

4032 

58 

4034-36 

58 

4040flf 

58 

4505 

108 

4529-33 

141 

4545 

.... 168, 171 

4590-99 

207 

4747-48 

75n 

4894 

79n 

4910-27 

102n 

4910-51 

112 

4940-45 

141 

5008-14 

191 

5018-58 

112 

5018-119 

225 

5019-24 

225 

5045 

225 

5051-54 

225 

5051-58 

225 

5074-79 

102n 

5095-5100 ... 

102n 

5107-19 

225 

5115-19 

225 

5120-45 

174 

5151 

19n 

5335-41 

225 

5344-45 

192 

5361-62 

156 

5379 

75n 

5395-96 

75n 

5453-54 

180 

5469 

19n 

5600 

87 

5672-77 

209 

5682-83 

108 

5717 

75n 

5757-61 

12n 

5767 

182 

5775 

75n 


(B. B.) 

(Page) 

5785-88 

102n 

5792-5839 

197 

5834-35 

197 

6001-6004 

181 

6019 

75n 

6060 

75n 

6062 

75n 

6068-73 

207 

6099 

128n 

6128 

19n 

6270-75 

56 

6276 

56 

6277 

57 

6324-27 

32 

6325 

34 

6329 

19n 

6329-30 

33 

6331-33 

33 

6335-36 

34 

6335-38 

33 

6339-44 

33 

6347-49 

33 

6359-65 

....33, 34 

6369 

19n 

6371-93 

33 

6395 

19n 

6395-97 

185 

6460-6520 

125 

6479-80 

185 

6481 

75n 

6495 

182 

6574 

40 

6578-7643 

206 

6581-82 

75n 

6581-86 

39 

6637ff 

206 

6637-43 

207 

6644-48 

207 

6649-54 

207 

6657ff 

206 

6674-77 

... 54, 130 


264 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN HE LA ROSE 


(R. B.) 

(Page) 

6678-80 

99 

6709-14 

115n 

6759-64 

.... 139, 140 

6811 

108 

6826 

108 

6835-40 

.... 139, 140 

6870-71 

75n 

6893-94 

107 

6909-10 

206 

6911-87 

24 

6926-27 

27n 

6928 

26n 

6929-42 

27n 

6930-32 

26n 

6940-42 . . ■ 

27 

6944 

25,27 

6947-49 

27 

6952-58 

27 

6975-81 

27n 

6984-86 

26n 

7091 


7118-19 

94 

7118-43 

95 

7145-48 

207 

7155 

119 

7163-70 

27n 

7171-72 

27n 

7173-79 

27n 

7183-88 

27n 

7194 

19n, 24 

7225-27 

29n 

7225-7358 .... 

28 

7226-30 

29n 

7243-45 

29n 

7247-48 

29 

7249-50 

29n 

7255 

75n 

7277-83 

29 

7283 

29n 

7290-91 

75n 

7303 

75n 


(B. B.) 

(Page) 

7315-28 

221 

7329 

29 

7356ff 

208 

7357-58 

29 

7359-62 

207 

7373-81 

15n 

7388-89 

99 

7400 

108 

7474-76 

118 

7480-82 

93 

7488 

79n 

7510-73 

37 

7516 

19n 

7549-56 

96 

7652-53 

75 

7652-54 

39 

7730-7935 . . . . 

222 

7781 


7781ff 

21n 

7783 

19n 

7783 

200 

7786ff 

202 

7808 

200 

7846 

19n 

7852 

19n 

7995-97 

119 

7998 

82n 

8056 

104 

8085-8128 . . . . 

157 

8094-95 

196 

8139 

196 

8152 

80n 

8161-66 

....168, 177 

8179-80 

107 

8?22 

190 

8300-8305 . . . . 

101 

8308-9 

184 

8440-41 

75n 

8488-89 

154 

8512-17 

219 

8617 

41 


CHAUCEE AND THE EOMAN DE LA EOSE 


265 


(R. B.) 

(Page) 

8737 

19n 

8754-55 

190, 197 

8769-73 

209 

8774-77 

209 

8776 

110 

8790-93 

208 

8822-23 

75n 

8900-40 

196 

8928 

196 

9013-19 

190 

9030 

80n 

9038 

19n 

9063-64 

108 

9105 

223 

9115-23 

223 

9126 

223 

9129-30 

107 

9132-35 

223 

9144-46 

223 

9148-51 

223 

9148-79 

131 

9160-63 

54 

9162 

130 

9176-79 

124 

9180-82 

223 

9190-91 

223 

9194-97 

223 

9198-9202 . . . . 

194 

9200-201 

221 

9239 

75n 

9265 

....168, 170 

9276-82 

169 

9310 

19n 

9310-57 

169 

9328-49 

168 

9331-34 

168 

9340-47 

102n 

9340-49 

168 

9348-53 

168 

9358-61 

38 

9365 

19n, 38 


(R. B.) 

(Page) 

9404-05 

38 

9416-37 

169 

9438 

78 

9438-39 

. ..' 102 

9440 

20n 

9444 

79n 

9458 

19n 

9470 

20n 

9472-73 

95 

9478 

20n 

9486 

19n 

9507 

20n 

9554 

20n 

9582-87 

38 

9583 

41 

9656-62 

92 

9680-86 

102n 

9692-95 

36 

9698 

36n 

9700 

19n 

9758 

19n 

9777-78 

168 

9839-44 ■. 

168 

9877-79 

195 

9891 

19n 

9926 

75n 

9933 

41 

9941 

41 

9945-56 

31n, 41 

9948 

41 

9953-56 

!31,40 

9954-55 

75n 

9956 

31 

10052 

79n 

10084-85 

75n 

10168 

20n 

10171-75 

142 

10174-204 

220 

10199-204 

221 

10202-3 

141 

10272-73 

223 


266 


CHAUCEB AND THE KOMAN DE LA EOSE 


(R. R.) 

(Page) 

10279-82 

223 

10309-16 

223 

10413-14 

75n 

10518-20 .... 

75n 

10547-51 .... 

93n, 141 

10563-99 

125 

10593-99 

125, 137 

10600-601 . . . . 

154 

10602-5 

141, 143 

10660-61 

180 

10664-65 

168 

10692-708 . . . . 

169 

10726 

169 

10845-46 

94 

11049-50 

141 

11135 

79n 

11198 

62 

11208-9 

62 

11208-19 .... 

84n 

11388-91 

53 

11396-99 

96 

11438 

80n 

11448-49 

120 

11559ff 

58 

11592 

59n, 66 

11592-95 

57 

11664-65 

59 

11688-89 

72 

11783-89 

169 

11816 

79n 

11822-24 

75n, 77n 

11836-40 

102n 

11986 

100 

12019ff 

165 

12154-75 

162 

12163 

164 

12174 

75n 

12239 

19n 

12254-55 

141, 142 

12270-75 

141, 142 

12298-301 .... 

174 


(R. R.) 

(Page) 

12460 

186 

12476-77 

196 

12492-93 

164 

12504 

164 

12515ff 

164 

12515-21 .... 

102n 

12566-72 .... 

141, 142 

12751-62 .... 

89n 

12897 

75n 

13030-31 

144 

13117-86 

157 

13162-3 

75n 

13186 

165 

13215-16 

193 

13215-64 

72 

13456 

108 

13523 

79n 

13563-64 .... 

75n 

13580 

186 

13683 

155 

13685-86 

155 

13700-701 .... 

96 

13722 

168 

13731-36 

133 

13731-37 

37 

13743-45 

168, 172 

13759-61 

194 

13792-93 

75n 

13830 

....19n 

13831-34 

179 

13859-60 

75n 

13865-66 

168 

13873-79 

168 

13965 

75n 

14080-82 

191 

14091-96 

168 

14115ff 

41 

14152-55 


14154 

45,46 

14163 

75n 

14166-67 

46 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


267 


(R. R.) 

(Page) 

14170 


14198-203 . . . . 

44 

14204-5 

118n 

14210-14 

168f 

14219 

105 

14277 

59 

14336-7 

161 

14336-8 

160 

14349-62 

161 

14357 

138 

14366-73 

161 

14393-94 

168 

14464-69 

168 

14560 

19n 

14560-61 .... 

75n 

14578 

19n, 22n 

14576-79 .... 

22n 

14633 

168 

14644-55 

170 

14648-51 

168 

14651 

168, 170 

14652 

75n 

14676 

78 

14714 

106, 107 

14775-85 

168 

14785-815 .... 

60 

14798-99 

199 

14817 

37 

14888-905 .... 

218 

14906-14 

220 

14906-25 

219 

14960-61 

195 

14972-75 

219 

14984-97 

219 

15034 

no 

15088 

121 

15100-129 .... 

60 

15152-53 .... 

75n 

15162-63 

97 

15218 

79 

15255 

75n 


(R. R.) 

(Page) 

15326-29 

168 

15338-39 

168 

15342-45 

43 

15349-52 

43 

15350-54 

43 

15401 

75n 

15420-35 

168 

15429-30 .... 

75n 

15481-82 .... 

75n 

15513-14 .... 

75n 

16046-47 .... 

59n 

16097-132 . . . . 

222 

16133-71 

222 

16179-80 

18 

16199 

no 

16558-59 

93 

16596-604 .... 

58 

16712-13 .... 

58n, 75n 

16871-74 

101 

16895-96 

41 

16897 

41 

16913ff 

102 

16967 

94 

16978 

138 

17015 

214 

17080-83 

214 

17103 

no 

17107 

41 

17113flE 

40 

17132 

19n 

17178-80 

87 

17262 

19n, 30n 

17271-73 

141 

17274 

19n 

17284-301 .... 

169 

17284-312 .... 

169 

17304-5 

169 

17366-70 

199 

17369 

82n 

17407 

75n 

17458-67 

169 


268 


CHAUCER AND THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE 


(R.R.) (Page) 

17478-637 ‘.31 

17481-83 201 

17482-83 200 

17523 19n 

17528 93n 

17553 179 

17614-25 30 

17614-26 31 

17626-27 118 

17666-71 216 

17698-709 216 

17719 211n 

17722-25 211n 

17872-3 50 

17886-90 215 

17898 211n 

17976-18659 142 

18030-37 215 

18038-47 211 

18038-534 210,214 

18060-61 182n 

18096-99 146 

18102-3 182n 

18167 75n 

18209-11 182n 

18213-15 182n 

18328-33 212 

18380-81 141 

18464-79 215 

18711-13 182n 

18843-4 75n 

18858-59 75n 

18941 49 

18966 19n,36 

18969 36 

18969-71 37 

18979-81 37 

18996-19024 60 

19007 87 

19071-72 168 

19116 216 


(R. R.) 

( Page ) 

19132 

i9n 

19143 

216 

19144 

216 

19182-83 

216 

19182-87 

37 

19233 

117 

19234-61 

146, 147 

19277 

216 

19280-82 

216 

19292-95 

217 

19300-301 .... 

217 

19302-4 

38 

19329-37 

217 

19432-47 

216,217 

19442-46 

216 

19499 

197 

19502-9 

22n 

19506 

19n 

19525 

75n 

19540-828 .... 

221 

19545 

105 

19552-67 

221 

19560-67 

221 

19614-19 

221 

19644-46 

221 

19682 

75n 

19725-34 

221 

19735-38 

221 

19744-59 

221 

19784-85 .... 

75n 

19796-800 .... 

221 

19911-12 

120 

19995 

19n 

20101 

19n 

20152 

169 

20327 

75n 

20437ff 


20437-40 .... 

211n 

20551-60 

226 

20561-68 

227 

20663-64 

199 


CHAUCEE AND THE BOMAN DE LA EOSE 


269 


(R. B.) 

(Page) 

20701 

52 

20702-3 

52 

20767-9 

50 

20771 

51 

21016 

105 

21027-32 

56 

21042-46 

56 

21113 

19n 

21211-18 

135 

21307-8 

119 

21327-28 

124 

21329 

135n 

21449-55 

124, 135 

21491-93 

124 

21518-21 

124. 134 

21559-62 .... 

i36n 

21569-70 

136n 

21582-85 .... 

13 6n 

21585-88 

124, 135 

21589-90 

124 

21715 

106n 

21818-19 

40 

21863 

119 


(R. R.) 

(Page) 

21878-81 

189 

21929 

138 

21936 

138 

21952 

138 

22004-5 

53 

22080 

59n, 66 

22087-94 .... 

59n 

22211-13 

119 

22234 

57 

22242 

120 

22289 

80n 

22327 

19n 

22365 

40 

22437 

19n 

22443 

19n 

22489-98 

191 

22500-509 .... 

125, 136 

22507 

137 

22546 

223 

22560-62 

141 

22574-88 

188 

22816-17 

86 









VITA 


Dean Spruill Fansler, son of Thomas L. Fansler and 
Willia Spruill, was born September 21, 1885, at Alton, 
Illinois. Attended the public schools of Evanston, Illinois, 
1891-1902; Northwestern University, 1902-1906 (A.B.) ; 
Columbia University, 1906-1907 (A.M.), 1911-1912. In- 
structor in English in the Evanston Academy of North- 
western University, 1907-1908. Was married to Harriott 
Baxter Ely, of Chicago, Illinois, in April 1908. Instructor 
in English in the Philippine Normal School, June, 1908- 
March, 1910. Assistant Professor of English in the Univer- 
sity of the Philippines, 1910-1911 ; Associate Professor and 
Chief of the Department of English, University of the 
Philippines, July, 1912. 

Member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, the Phi Beta 
Kappa society, the Alpha Delta Phi society, and the Philip- 
pine Academy. Lecturer on English Language and Litera- 
ture at the Teachers’ Vacation Assembly at Bagnio, P. I., 
1909 ; Lecturer on Spanish Literature for the University 
Extension Institute at Manila, 1909-1910 ; Lecturer on Phil- 
ippine Literature for the Philippine Academy at Manila, 
1913. Author in collaboration with Harriott Ely Fansler 
of ‘^A Manual of the Principles of English Form and 
Diction” (Manila, 1908; Chicago, 1909) and ^‘Exercises in 
the Principles of English Form and Diction” (Chicago, 
1909). 



















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